AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OP 

ANTHONY TROLLOPE 



OTorfeS of ^ntijonp CroUope 



Cfje Cftroniclesi of Jiarsietsffjire. Comprising: 

THE WARDEN, 1 Vol. 

BARCHESTER TOWERS, 2 Vols. 

DR. THORNE, 2 Vols. 

FRAMLEY PARSONAGE, 2 Vols. 

THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON, 3 Vols. 

LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET, 3 Vols. 

W^t parliamentary J5obel£{. Comprising: 

THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS, 2 Vols. 
CAN YOU FORGIVE HER, 3 Vols. 
PHINEAS FINN, 3 Vols. 
PHINEAS REDUX, 3 Vols. 
THE PRIME MINISTER, 3 Vols. 
THE DUKE'S CHILDREN, 3 Vols. 

^fje jHanOr J^OUSle iSoljelSJ. Comprising: 

ORLEY FARM, 3 Vols. 

THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 2 Vols. 

IS HE POPENJOY, 2 Vols. 

JOHN CALDIGATE, 3 Vols. 

THE BELTON ESTATE, 2 Vols. 

^n jautobiograpfjp of ^ntfjonp ^roUope. 

1 Vol. 



AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 

ANTHONY TROLLOPE 



WITH 
FRONTISPIECE 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 

1922 









PRINTED IN U. S. A. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I My Education, 1815-1834 i 

II My Mother 17 

III The General Post Office^ 1834-1841 29 

IV Ireland— My First Two Novels, 1841-1848 51 

V My First Success, 1849-1855 69 

VI "Barchester Towers" and the "Three 

Clerks" 1855-1858 87 

Vll "Doctor Thorne" — "The Bertrams" — 
"The West Indies and the Spanish 
Main " 103 

VIII The "Cornhill Magazine" and "Framley 

Parsonage" 115 

IX "Castle Richmond;" "Brown, Jones and 
Robinson ; " " North America ; " " Orley 
Farm " 134 

X "The Small House at Allington," "Can 
You Forgive Her ? " " Rachel Ray " and 
the "Fortnightly Review" 150 

XI "The Claverings/' "The Pall Mall Ga- 
zette/' " Nina Balatka/' and " Linda * 
Tressel" 170 

XII On Novels and the Art of Writing Them 186 



VI CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PACE 

XIII On English Novelists of the Present 

Day 21 1 

XIV On Criticism 227 

XV " The Last Chronicle of Barset " — Leav- 
ing the Post Office — " St. Paul's Maga- 
zine " 235 

XVI Beverley 252 

XVII The American Postal Treaty — The Ques- 
tion OF Copyright v^ith America — Four 
More Novels 265 

XVIII "The Vicar of Bullhampton" — ''Sir 
Harry Hotspur" — ''An Editor's Tales" 
— " C^SAR " 281 

XIX "Ralph the Heir" — "The Eustace Dia- 
monds" — "Lady Anna" — "Australia" 295 

XX "The Way We Live Now" and "The 

Prime Minister ''—Conclusion 306 



PREFACE 

It may be well that I should put a short preface to this 
book. In the summer of 1878 my father told me that 
he had written a memoir of his own life. He did not 
speak about it at length, but said that he had written 
me a letter, not to be opened until after his death, 
containing instructions for publication. 

This letter was dated 30th April, 1876. I will give 
here as much of it as concerns the public : " I wish 
you to accept as a gift from me, given you now, the 
accompanying pages which contain a memoir of my 
life. My intention is that they shall be published after 
my death, and be edited by you. But I leave it alto- 
gether to your discretion whether to publish or to 
suppress the work; — and also to your discretion 
whether any part or what part shall be omitted. But 
I would not wish that anything should be added to the 
memoir. If you wish to say any Vv^ord as from yourself, 
let it be done in the shape of a preface or introductory 
chapter." At the end there is a postscript: "The 
publication, if made at all, should be effected as soon 
as possible after my death." My father died on the 6th 
of December, 1882. 

It will be seen, therefore, that my duty has been 
merely to pass the book through the press conform- 
ably to the above instructions. I have placed headings 
to the right-hand pages throughout the book, and I 
do not conceive that I was precluded from so doing. 

vii 



VI 11 PREFACE 

Additions of any other sort there have been none; the 
few footnotes are my father's own additions or cor^ 
rections. And I have made no alterations. I have 
suppressed some few passages, but not more than 
would amount to two printed pages has been omitted. 
My father has not given any of his own letters, nor 
was it his wish that any should be published. 

I see from my father's manuscript, and from his 
papers, that the first two chapters of this memoir 
were written in the latter part of 1875, that he began 
the third chapter early in January, 1876, and that he 
finished the record before the middle of April in that 
year. I state this, though there are indications in the 
book by which it might be seen at what time the 
memoir was being written. 

So much I would say by way of preface. And I 
think I may also give in a few words the main incidents 
in my father's life after he completed his auto- 
biography. 

He has said that he had given up hunting; but he 
still kept two horses for such riding as may be had in 
or about the immediate neighborhood of London. He 
continued to ride to the end of his life: he liked the 
exercise, and I think it would have distressed him not 
to have had a horse in his stable. But he never spoke 
willingly on hunting matters. He had at last resolved 
to give up his favourite amusement, and that as far 
as he was concerned there should be an end of it. In 
the spring of 1877 he went to South Africa, and 
returned early in the following year with a book on the 
colony already written. In the summer of 1878, he 
was one of a party of ladies and gentlemen who made 
an expedition to Iceland in the " Mastiff," one of Mr. 



PREFACE IX 

John Burns' steam-ships. The journey lasted alto- 
gether sixteen days, and during that time Mr. and 
Mrs. Burns were the hospitable entertainers. When 
my father returned, he wrote ? short account of How 
the " Mastiffs " went to Iceland. The book was printed, 
but was intended only for private circulation. 

Every day, until his last illness, my father continued 
his work. He would not otherwise have been happy. 
He demanded from himself less than he had done ten 
years previously, but his daily task was always done. 
I will mention now the titles of his books that were 
published after the last included in the list which he 
himself has given at the end of the second volume : — 

An Eye for an Eye, • • • • 1879 

Cousin Henry, 1879 

Thackeray, 1879 

The Duke's Children, 1880 

Life of Cicero, 1880 

Ayala's Angel, 1881 

Doctor Wortle's School, .... 1881 

Frau Frohmann and other Stories, . 1882 

Lord Palmerston, 1882 

The Fixed Period, 1882 

Kept in the Dark, 1882 

Marion Fay, 1882 

Mr. Scarborough's Family, . . . 1883 

At the time of his death he had written four-fifths 
of an Irish story, called The Landleaguers, shortly 
about to be published; and he left in manuscript a 
completed novel, called An Old Man's Love, which 
will be published by Messrs. Blackwood & Sons in 
1884. 

In the summer of 1880 my father left London, and 
went to live at Harting, a village in Sussex, but on 



X PREFACE 

the confines of Hampshire. I think he chose that 
spot because he found there a house that suited him, 
and because of the prettiness of the neighbourhood. 
His last long journey was a trip to Italy in the late 
winter and spring of 1881 ; but he went to Ireland 
twice in 1882. He went there in May of that year, and 
was then absent nearly a month. This journey did him 
much good, for he found that the softer atmosphere 
relieved his asthma, from which he had been suffering 
for nearly eighteen months. In August following he 
made another trip to Ireland, but from this journey 
he derived less benefit. He was much interested in, 
and was very much distressed by, the unhappy con- 
dition of the country. Few men knew Ireland better 
than he did. He had lived there for sixteen years, 
and his Post Office work had taken him into every part 
of the island. In the summer of 1882 he began his last 
novel. The Landleaguers, which, as stated above, was 
unfinished when he died. This book was a cause of 
anxiety to him. He could not rid his mind of the fact 
that he had a story already in the course of publi- 
cation, but which he had not yet completed. In no 
other case, except Framley Parsonage, did my father 
publish even the first number of any novel before he 
had fully completed the whole tale. 

On the evening of the 3d of November, 1882, he was 
seized with paralysis on the right side, accompanied 
by loss of speech. His mind also had failed, though 
at intervals his thoughts would return to him. After 
the first three weeks these lucid intervals became rarer, 
but it was always very difficult to tell how far his 
mind was sound or how far astray. He died on the 
evening of the 6th of December following, nearly five 
weeks from the night of his attack. 



PREFACE XI 

I have been led to say these few words, not at all 
from a desire to supplement my father's biography 
of himself, but to mention the main incidents in his 
life after he had finished his own record. In what I 
have here said I do not think I have exceeded his 
instructions. 

Henry M. Trollope. 

September, 1883. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 

ANTHONY TROLLOPE 

CHAPTER I 

MY EDUCATION 
1815-1834 

In writing these pages, which, for the want of a better 
name, I shall be fain to call the autobiography of so 
insignificant a person as myself, it will not be so much 
my intention to speak of the little details of my private 
life, as of what I, and perhaps others round me, have 
done in literature ; of my failures and successes such as 
they have been, and their causes; and of the opening 
which a literary career offers to men and women for 
the earning of their bread. And yet the garrulity of 
old age, and the aptitude of a man's mind to recur to the 
passages of his own life, will, I know, tempt me to say 
something of myself; — nor, without doing so, should I 
know how to throw my matter into any recognised and 
intelligible form. That I, or any man, should tell 
everything of himself, I hold to be impossible. Who 
could endure to own the doing of a mean thing? Who 
is there that has done none? But this I protest: — that 
nothing that I say shall be untrue. I will set down 
naught in malice; nor will I give to myself, or others, 



2 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY >^ 

honour which I do not believe to have been fairly won. 
My boyhood was, I think, as unhappy as that of a 
young gentleman could well be, my misfortunes arising 
from a mixture of poverty and gentle standing on the 
part of my father, and from an utter want on my own 
part of that juvenile manhood which enables some boys 
to hold up their heads even among the distresses which 
such a position is sure to produce. 

I was born in 1815, in Keppel Street, Russell Square; 
and while a baby, was carried down to Harrow, where 
my father had built a house on a large farm which, in 
an evil hour he took on a long lease from Lord North- 
wick. That farm was the grave of all my father's 
hopes, ambition, and prosperity, the cause of my 
mother's sufferings, and of those of her children, and 
perhaps the director of her destiny and of ours. My 
father had been a Wykamist and a fellow of New Col- 
lege, and Winchester was the destination of my brothers 
and myself; but as he had friends among the masters 
at Harrow, and as the school offered an education 
almost gratuitous to children living in the parish, he, 
with a certain aptitude to do things differently from 
others, which accompanied him throughout his life, 
determined to use that august seminary as a " t'other 
school " for Winchester, and sent three of us there, one 
after the other, at the age of seven. My father at this 
time was a Chancery barrister practising in London, 
occupying dingy, almost suicidal chambers, at No. 23 
Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, — chambers which on one 
melancholy occasion did become absolutely suicidal. 1 
He was, as I have been informed by those quite com- 
petent to know, an excellent and most conscientious 
lawyer, but plagued with so bad a temper, that he 
1 A pupil of his destroyed himself in the rooms. 



MY EDUCATION 3 

drove the attorneys from him. In his early days he 
was a man of some small fortune and of higher hopes. 
These stood so high at the time of my birth, that he 
was felt to be entitled to a country house, as well as to 
that in Keppel Street; and in order that he might build 
such a residence, he took the farm. This place he 
called Julians, and the land runs up to the foot of the 
hill on which the school and church stand, — on the side 
towards London. Things there went much against 
him; the farm was ruinous, and I remember that we 
all regarded the Lord Northwick of those days as a 
cormorant who was eating us up. My father's clients 
deserted him. He purchased various dark gloomy 
chambers in and about Chancery Lane, and his pur- 
chases always went wrong. Then, as a final crushing 
blow, an old uncle, whose heir he was to have been, 
married and had a family? The house in London was 
let; and also the house he built at Harrow, from which 
he descended to a farmhouse on the land, which I have 
endeavoured to make known to some readers under the 
name of Orley Farm. This place, just as it was when 
we lived there, is to be seen in the frontispiece to the 
first edition of that novel, having had the good fortune 
to be delineated by no less a pencil than that of John 
Millais. 

My two elder brothers had been sent as day-boarders 
to Harrow School from the bigger house, and may 
probably have been received among the aristocratic 
crowd, — not on equal terms, because a day-boarder at 
Harrow in those days was never so received, — but at 
any rate as other day-boarders. I do not suppose that 
they were well treated, but I doubt whether they were 
subjected to the ignominy which I endured. I was only 
seven, and I think that boys at seven are now spared 



4 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

among their more considerate seniors. I was never 
spared; and was not even allowed to run to and fro 
between our house and the school without a daily 
purgatory. No doubt my appearance was against me. 
I remember well, when I was still the junior boy in the 
school, Dr. Butler, the head-master, stopping me in the 
street, and asking me, with all the clouds of Jove upon 
his brow and all the thunder in his voice, whether it was 
possible that Harrow School was disgraced by so dis- 
reputably dirty a little boy as I ! Oh, what I felt at 
that moment ! But I could not look my feelings. I do 
not doubt that I was dirty; — but I think that he was 
cruel. He must have known me had he seen me as he 
was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of flogging 
me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognise me by 
my face. 

At this time I was three years at Harrow; and, as 
far as I can remember, I was the junior boy in the 
school when I left it. 

Then I was sent to a private school at Sunbury, kept 
by Arthur Drury. This, I think, must have been done 
in accordance with the advice of Henry Drury, who was 
my tutor at Harrow School, and my father's friend, 
and who may probably have expressed an opinion that 
my juvenile career was not proceeding in a satisfactory 
manner at Harrow. To Sunbury I went, and during 
the two years I was there, though I never had any 
pocket-money, and seldom had much in the way of 
clothes, I lived more nearly on terms of equality with 
other boys than at any other period during my very 
prolonged school-days. Even here, I was always in 
disgrace. I remember well how, on one occasion, four 
boys were selected as having been the perpetrators of 
some nameless horror, What it was, to this day I 



MY EDUCATION 5 

cannot even guess ; but I was one of the four, innocent 
as a babe, but adjudged to have been the guiltiest of 
the guilty. We each had to write out a sermon, and 
my sermon was the longest of the four. During the 
whole of one term-time we were helped last at every 
meal. We were not allowed to visit the playground 
till the sermon was finished. Mine was only done a day 
or two before the holidays. Mrs. Drury, when she saw 
us, shook her head with pitying horror. There were 
ever so many other punishments accumulated on our 
heads. It broke my heart, knowing myself to be inno- 
cent, and suffering also under the almost equally 
painful feeling that the other three — no doubt wicked 
boys — were the curled darlings of the school, who 
would never have selected me to share their wicked- 
ness with them. I contrived to learn, from words 
that fell from Mr. Drury, that he condemned me 
because I, having come from a public school, might 
be supposed to be the leader of wickedness ! On the 
first day of the next term he whispered to me half 
a word that perhaps he had been wrong. With all 
a stupid boy's slowness, I said nothing; and he had 
not the courage to carry reparation further. All 
that was fifty years ago, and it burns me now as 
though it were yesterday. What lily-livered curs 
those boys must have been not to have told the 
truth ! — at any rate as far as I was concerned. I 
remember their names well, and almost wish to write 
them here. 

When I was twelve there came the vacancy at Win- 
chester College which I was destined to fill. My two 
elder brothers had gone there, and the younger had 
been taken away, being already supposed to have lost 
his chance of New College. It had been one of the 



6 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

great ambitions of my father's life that his three sons, 
who lived to go to Winchester, should all become fel- 
lows of New College. But that suffering man was 
never destined to have an ambition gratified. We all 
lost the prize which he struggled with infinite labour to 
put within our reach. My eldest brother all but 
achieved it, and afterwards went to Oxford, taking 
three exhibitions from the school, though he lost the 
great glory of a Wykamist. He has since made him- 
self well known to the public as a writer in connection 
with all Italian subjects. He is still living as I now 
write. But my other brother died early. 

While I was at Winchester my father's affairs went 
from bad to worse. He gave up his practice at the 
bar, and, unfortunate that he was, took another farm. 
It is odd that a man should conceive, — and in this case 
a highly educated and a very clever man, — that farm- 
ing should be a business in which he might make money 
without any special education or apprenticeship. Per- 
haps of all trades it is the one in which an ac- 
curate knowledge of what things should be done, and 
the best manner of doing them, is most necessary. 
And it is one also for success in which a sufficient 
capital is indispensable. He had no knowledge, and, 
when he took this second farm, no capital. This was 
the last step preparatory to his final ruin. 

Soon after I had been sent to Winchester my mother 
went to America, taking with her my brother Henry 
and my two sisters, who were then no more than 
children. This was, I think, in 1827. I have no clear 
knowledge of her object, or of my father's; but I 
believe that he had an idea that money might be made 
by sending goods, — little goods, such as pin-cushions, 
pepper-boxes, and pocket-knives, — out to the still 



MY EDUCATION 7 

unfurnished States; and that she conceived that an 
opening might be made for my brother Henry by 
erecting some bazaar or extended shop in one of the 
Western cities. Whence the money came I do not 
know, but the pocket-knives and the pepper-boxes were 
bought, and the bazaar built. I have seen it since in 
the town of Cincinnati, — a sorry building ! But I 
have been told that in those days it was an imposing 
edifice. My mother went first, with my sisters and sec- 
ond brother. Then my father followed them, taking 
my elder brother before he went to Oxford. But there 
was an interval of some year and a half during which 
he and I were in Winchester together. 

Over a period of forty years, since I began my man- 
hood at a desk in the Post Office, I and my brother, 
Thomas Adolphus, have been fast friends. There have 
been hot words between us, for perfect friendship bears 
and allows hot words. Few brothers have had more of 
brotherhood. But in those schooldays he was, of all 
my foes, the worst. In accordance with the practice 
of the college, which submits, or did then submit, much 
of the tuition of the younger boys from the elder, he 
was my tutor ; and in his capacity of teacher and ruler, 
he had studied the theories of Draco. I remember 
well how he used to exact obedience after the manner 
of that lawgiver. Hang a little boy for stealing apples, 
he used to say, and other little boys will not steal apples. 
The doctrine was already exploded elsewhere, but he 
stuck to it with conservative energy. The result was 
that, as a part of his daily exercise, he thrashed me 
with a big stick. That such thrashings should have 
been possible at a school as a continual part of one's 
daily life, seems to me to argue a very ill condition of 
school discipline. 



8 AIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

At this period I remember to have passed one set of 
holidays — the midsummer holidays — in my father's 
chambers in Lincoln's Inn. There was often a difficulty 
about the hoMdays, — as to what should be done with me. 
On this occasion my amusement consisted in. wandering 
about among those old deserted buildings, and in read- 
ing Shakespeare out of a bi-columned edition, which is 
still among my books. It was not that I had chosen 
Shakespeare, but that there was nothing else to read. 

After a while my brother left Winchester and accom- 
panied my father to America. Then another and a 
different horror fell to my fate. My college bills had 
not been paid, and the school tradesmen who adminis- 
tered to the wants of the boys were told not to extend 
their credit to me. Boots, waistcoats, and pocket- 
handkerchiefs, which, with some slight superveillance, 
were at the command of other scholars, were closed 
luxuries to me. My schoolfellows of course knew that 
it was so, and I became a Pariah. It is the nature of 
boys to be cruel. I have sometimes doubted whether 
among each other they do usually suffer much, one from 
the other's cruelty ; but I suffered horribly ! I could 
make no stand against it. I had no friend to whom I 
could pour out my sorrows. I was big, and awkward, 
and ugly, and, I have no doubt, sulked about in a most 
unattractive manner. Of course I was ill-dressed and 
dirty. But ah! how well I remember all the agonies 
of my young heart ; how I considered whether I should 
always be alone; whether I could not find my way up 
to the top of that college tower, and from thence put 
an end to everything? And a worse thing came than 
the stoppage of the supplies from the shopkeepers. 
Every boy had a shilling a week pocket-money, which 
we called battels, and which was advanced to us out 



MY EDUCATION Q 

of the pocket of the second master. On one awful day 
the second master announced to me that my battels 
would be stopped. He told me the reason, — the battels 
for the last half-year had not been repaid ; and he urged 
his own unwillingness to advance the money. The loss 
of a shilling a week would not have been much, — even 
though pocket-money from other sources never reached 
me, — but that the other boys all knew it ! Every now 
and again, perhaps three or four times in a half-year, 
these weekly shillings were given to certain servants 
of the college, in payment, it may be presumed, for some 
extra services. And now, when it came to the turn of 
any servant, he received sixty-nine shillings instead of 
seventy, and the cause of the defalcation was explained 
to him. I never saw one of those servants without 
feeling I had picked his pocket. 

When I had been at Winchester something over three 
years, my father returned to England and took me away. 
Whether this was done because of the expense, or 
because my chance of New College was supposed to have 
passed away, I do not know. As a fact, I should, I 
believe, have gained the prize, as there occurred in my 
year an exceptional number of vacancies. But it would 
have served me nothing, as there would have been no 
funds for my maintenance at the University till I should 
have entered in upon the fruition of the founder's 
endowment, and my career at Oxford must have been 
unfortunate. 

When I left Winchester, I had three more years of 
school before me, having as yet endured nine. My 
father at this time having left my mother and sisters 
with my younger brother in America, took himself to 
live at a wretched tumble-down farmhouse on the sec- 
ond farm he had hired! And I was taken there with 



10 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

him. It was nearly three miles from Harrow, at Har- 
row Weald, but in the parish; and from this house I 
was again sent to that school as a day-boarder. Let 
those who know what is the usual appearance and what 
the usual appurtenances of a boy at such a school, con- 
sider what must have been my condition among them, 
with a daily walk of twelve miles through the lanes, 
added to the other little troubles and labours of a school 
life! 

Perhaps the eighteen months which I passed in this 
condition, walking to and fro on those miserably dirty 
lanes, was the worst period of my life. I was now over 
fifteen, and had come to an age at which I could appre- 
ciate at its full the misery of expulsion from all social 
intercourse. I had not only no friends, but was despised 
by all my companions. The farmhouse was not only 
no more than a farmhouse, but was one of those farm- 
houses which seem always to be in danger of falling 
into the neighbouring horse-pond. As it crept down- 
wards from house to stables, from stables to barns, 
from barns to cowsheds, and from cowsheds to dung- 
heaps, one could hardly tell where one began and the 
other ended ! There was a parlour in which my father 
lived, shut up among big books; but I passed my most 
jocund hours in the kitchen, making innocent love to 
the bailiff's daughter. The farm kitchen might be very 
well through the evening, when the horrors of the 
school were over; but it all added to the cruelty of the 
days. A sizar at a Cambridge college, or a Bible- 
clerk at Oxford, has not pleasant days, or used not to 
have them half a century ago; but his position was 
recognised, and the misery was measured. I was a 
sizar at a fashionable school, a condition never pre- 
meditated. What right had a wretched farmer's h^y. 



MY EDUCATION II 

reeking from a dunghill, to sit next to the sons of peers, 
— or much worse still, next to the sons of big trades- 
men who made their ten thousand a year? The 
indignities I endured are not to be described. As I 
look back it seems to me that all hands were turned 
against me, — those of masters as well as boys. I was 
allowed to join in no plays. Nor did I learn 
anything,^ — for I was taught nothing. The only 
expense, except that of books, to which a house- 
boarder was then subject, was the fee to a tutor, 
amounting, I think, to ten guineas. My tutor took me 
without the fee; but when I heard him declare the fact 
in the pupil-room before the boys, I hardly felt grateful 
for the charity. I was never a coward, and cared for a 
thrashing as little as any boy, but one cannot make a 
stand against the acerbities of three hundred tyrants 
without a moral courage of which at that time I pos- 
sessed none. I know that I skulked, and was odious to 
the eyes of those I admired and envied. At last I was 
driven to rebellion, and there came a great fight, — at 
the end of which my opponent had to be taken home for 
a while. If these words be ever printed, I trust that 
some schoolfellow of those days may still be left alive 
who will be able to say that, in claiming this solitary 
glory of my school-days, I am not making a false boast. 
I wish I could give some adequate picture of the 
gloom of that farmhouse. My elder brother — Tom as 
I must call him in my narrative, though the world, I 
think, knows him best as Adolphus — was at Oxford. 
My father and I lived together, he having no means 
of living except what came from the farm. My memory 
tells me that he was always in debt to his landlord and 
to the tradesmen he employed. Of self-indulgence no 
one could accuse him. Our table was poorer, I think, 



12 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

than that of the bailiff who still hung on to our shat- 
tered fortunes. The furniture was mean and scanty. 
There was a large rambling kitchen-garden, but no 
gardener; and many times verbal incentives were made 
to me, — generally, I fear, in vain, — to get me to lend a 
hand at digging and planting. Into the hayfields on 
holidays I was often compelled to go, — not, I fear, with 
much profit. My father's health was very bad. During 
the last ten years of his life, he spent nearly the half 
of his time in bed, suffering agony from sick headaches. 
But he was never idle unless when suffering. He had at 
this time commenced a work, — an Encyclopedia Ecclesi- 
astica, as he called it, — on which he laboured to the 
moment of his death. It was his ambition to describe 
all ecclesiastical terms, including the denominations of 
every fraternity of monks and every convent of nuns, 
with all their orders and subdivisions. Under crush- 
ing disadvantages, with few or no books of reference, 
with immediate access to no library, he worked at his 
most ungrateful task with unflagging industry. When 
he died, three numbers out of eight had been published 
by subscription; and are now, I fear, unknown, and 
buried in the midst of that huge pile of futile literature, 
the building up of which has broken so many hearts. 

And my father, though he would try, as it were by a 
side wind, to get a useful spurt of work out of me, 
either in the garden or in the hay-field, had constantly 
an eye to my scholastic improvement. From my very 
babyhood, before those first days at Harrow, I had to 
take my place alongside of him as he shaved at six 
o'clock in the morning, and say my early rules from the 
Latin Grammar, or repeat the Greek alphabet; and was 
obliged at these early lessons to hold my head inclined 
towards him, so that in the event of guilty fault, he 



MY EDUCATION 13 

might be able to pull my hair without stopping his 
razor or dropping his shaving-brush. No father was 
ever more anxious for the education of his children, 
though I think none ever knew less how to go about 
the work. Of amusement, as far as I can remember, 
he never recognised the need. He allowed himself no 
distraction, and did not seem to think it was necessary 
to a child. I cannot bethink me of aught that he ever 
did for my gratification; but for my welfare, — for the 
welfare of us all, — he was willing to make any sacri- 
fice. At this time, in the farmhouse at Harrow Weald, 
he could not give his time to teach me, for every hour 
that he was not in the fields was devoted to his monks 
and nuns; but he would require me to sit at a table 
with Lexicon and Gradus before me. As I look back 
on my resolute idleness and fixed determination to make 
no use whatever of the books thus thrust upon me, or 
of the hours, and as I bear in mind the consciousness of 
great energy in after-life, I am in doubt whether my 
nature is wholly altered, or whether his plan was 
wholly bad. In those days he never punished me, 
though I think I grieved him much by my idleness; 
but in passion he knew not what he did, and he has 
knocked me down with the great folio Bible which he 
always used. In the old house were the two first 
volumes of Cooper's novel, called The Prairie, a relic — 
probably a dishonest relic — of some subscription to 
Hookham's library. Other books of the kind there was 
none. I wonder how many dozen times I read those 
two first volumes. 

It was the horror of those dreadful walks backwards 
and forwards which made my life so bad. What so 
pleasant, what so sweet, as a walk along an English 
lane, when the air is sweet and the weather fine, and 



14 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

when there is a charm in walking? But here were the 
same lanes four times a day, in wet and dry, in heat 
and summer, with all the accompanying mud and dust, 
and with disordered clothes. I might have been known 
among all the boys at a hundred yards' distance by my 
boots and trousers, — and was conscious at all times that 
I was so known. I remembered constantly that address 
from Dr. Butler when I was a little boy. Dr. Longley 
might with equal justice have said the same thing any 
day, — only that Dr. Longley never in his life was able 
to say an ill-natured word. Dr. Butler only became 
Dean of Peterborough, but his successor lived to be 
Archbishop of Canterbury. 

I think it was in the autumn of 1831 that my mother, 
with the rest of the family, returned from America. 
She lived at first at the farmhouse, but it was only for a 
short time. She came back with a book written about 
the United States, and the immediate pecuniary suc- 
cess which that work obtained enabled her to take us 
all back to the house at Harrow, — not to the first house, 
which would still have been beyond her means, but to 
that which has since been called Orley Farm, and which 
was an Eden as compared to our abode at Harrow 
Weald. Here my schooling went on under somewhat 
improved circumstances. The three miles became half 
a mile, and probably some salutary changes were made 
in my wardrobe. My mother and my sisters, too, were 
there. And a great element of happiness was added 
to us all in the affectionate and life-enduring friend- 
ship of the family of our close neighbour Colonel 
Grant. But I was never able to overcome — or even to 
attempt to overcome — the absolute isolation of my 
school position. Of the cricket-ground or racket-court 
I was allowed to know nothing. And yet I longed for 



MY EDUCATION 15 

these things with an exceeding longing. I coveted 
popularity with a covetousness that was almost mean. 
It seemed to me that there would be an Elysium in the 
intimacy of those very boys whom I was bound to hate 
because they hated me. Something of the disgrace of 
my school-days has clung to me all through life. Not 
that I have ever shunned to speak of them as openly 
as I am writing now, but that when I have been claimed 
as schoolfellow by some of those many hundreds who 
were with me either at Harrow or at Winchester, I 
have felt that I had no right to talk of things from most 
of which I was kept in estrangement. 

Through all my father's troubles he still desired to 
send me either to Oxford or Cambridge. My elder 
brother went to Oxford, and Henry to Cambridge. It 
all depended on my ability to get some scholarship that 
would help me to live at the University. I had many 
chances. There were exhibitions from Harrow — which 
I never got. Twice I tried for a sizarship at Clare 
Hall, — but in vain. Once I made a futile attempt for a 
scholarship at Trinity, Oxford, — but failed again. Then 
the idea of a university career was abandoned. And 
very fortunate it was that I did not succeed, for my 
career with such assistance only as a scholarship would 
have given me, would have ended in debt and ignominy. 

When I left Harrow I was all but nineteen, and I 
had at first gone there at seven. During the whole of 
those twelve years no attempt had been made to teach 
me anything but Latin and Greek, and very little 
attempt to teach me those languages. I do not remem- 
ber any lessons either in writing or arithmetic. French 
and German I certainly was not taught. The asser- 
tion will scarcely be credited, but I do assert that I 
have no recollection of other tuition except that in the 



l6 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

dead languages. At the school at Sunbury there was 
certainly a writing master and a French master. The 
latter was an extra, and I never had extras. I suppose 
I must have been in the writing master's class, but 
though I can call to mind the man, I cannot call to 
mind his ferule. It was by their ferules that I always 
knew them, and they me. I feel convinced in my mind 
that I have been flogged oftener than any human being 
alive. It was just possible to obtain five scourgings in 
one day at Winchester, and I have often boasted that I 
obtained them all. Looking back over half a century, 
I am not quite sure whether the boast is true; but if 
I did not, nobody ever did. 

And yet when I think how little I knew of Latin or 
Greek on leaving Harrow at nineteen, I am astonished 
at the possibility of such waste of time. I am now a 
fair Latin scholar, — that is to say, I read and enjoy the 
Latin classics, and could probably make myself under- 
stood in Latin prose. But the knowledge which I have, 
I have acquired since I left school, — no doubt aided 
much by that groundwork of the language which will 
in the process of years make its way slowly, even 
through the skin. There were twelve years of tuition 
in which I do not remember that I ever knew a lesson ! 
When I left Harrow I was nearly at the top of the 
school, being a monitor, and, I think, the seventh boy. 
This position I achieved by gravitation upwards. I bear 
in mind well with how prodigal a hand prizes used to 
be showered about; but I never got a prize. From 
the first to the last there was nothing satisfactory in 
my school career, — except the way in which I licked 
the boy who had to be taken home to be cured. 



CHAPTER II 

MY MOTHER 

Though I do not wish in these pages to go back to the 
origin of all the Trollopes, I must say a few words of 
my mother, — partly because filial duty will not allow me 
to be silent as to a parent who made for herself a con- 
siderable name in the literature of her day, and partly 
because there were circumstances in her career well 
worthy of notice. She was the daughter of the Rev. 
William Milton, vicar of Heckfield, who, as well as 
my father, had been a fellow of New College. She 
was nearly thirty when, in 1809, she married my father. 
Six or seven years ago a bundle of love-letters from her 
to him fell into my hand in a very singular way, hav- 
ing been found in the house of a stranger, who, with 
much courtesy, sent them to me. They were then about 
sixty years old, and had been written some before and 
some after her marriage, over the space of perhaps a 
year. In no novel of Richardson's or Miss Burney's 
have I seen a correspondence at the same time so sweet, 
so graceful, and so well expressed. But the marvel of 
these letters was in the strange difference they bore 
to the love-letters of the present day. They are, all of 
them, on square paper, folded and sealed, and addressed 
to my father on circuit ; but the language in each, though 
it almost borders on the romantic, is beautifully chosen, 
and fit, without change of a syllable, for the most 

17 



l8 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

critical eye. What girl now studies the words with 
which she shall address her lover, or seeks to charm 
him with grace of diction? She dearly likes a Httle 
slang, and revels in the luxury of entire familiarity with 
a new and strange being. There is something in that, 
too, pleasant to our thoughts, but I fear that this phase 
of life does not conduce to a taste for poetry among 
our girls. Though my mother was a writer of prose, 
and revelled in satire, the poetic feeling clung to her to 
the last. 

In the first ten years of her married life she became 
the mother of six children, four of whom died of con- 
sumption at different ages. My elder sister married, 
and had children, of whom one still lives; but she was 
one of the four who followed each other at intervals 
during my mother's lifetime. Then my brother Tom 
and I were left to her, — with the destiny before us 
three of writing more books than were probably ever 
before produced by a single family, i My married sis- 
ter added to the number by one little anonymous high 
church story, called Chollerton. 

From the date of their marriage up to 1827, when my 
mother went to America, my father's affairs had always 
been going down in the world. She had loved society, 
affecting a somewhat liberal role and professing an 
emotional dislike to tyrants, which sprung from the 
wrongs of would-be regicides and the poverty of patriot 
exiles. An Italian marquis who had escaped with only 

1 The family of Estienne, the great French printers of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom there were at 
least nine or ten, did more perhaps for the production of 
literature than any other family. But they, though they 
edited, and not unfrequently translated the works which 
they published, were not authors in the ordinary sense. 



MY MOTHER IQ 

a second shirt from the clutches of some archduke whom 
he had wished to exterminate, or a French proletaire 
with distant ideas of sacrificing himself to the cause of 
liberty, were always welcome to the modest hospitality 
of her house. In after years, when marquises of 
another caste had been gracious to her, she became a 
strong Tory, and thought that archduchesses were 
sweet. But with her politics were always an affair of 
the heart, — as, indeed, were all her convictions. Of 
reasoning from causes, I think that she knew nothing. 
Her heart was in every way so perfect, her desire to do 
good to all around her so thorough, and her power of 
self-sacrifice so complete, that she generally got herself 
right in spite of her want of logic; but it must be 
acknowledged that she was emotional. I can remember 
now her books, and can see her at her pursuits. The 
poets she loved best were Dante and Spenser. But she 
raved also of him of whom all such ladies were raving 
then, and rejoiced in the popularity and wept over the 
persecution of Lord Byron. She was among those who 
seized with avidity on the novels, as they came out, of 
the then unknown Scott, and who could still talk of the 
triumphs of Miss Edgeworth. With the literature of 
the day she was familiar, and with the poets of the 
past. Of other reading I do not think she had mastered 
much. Her life, I take it, though latterly clouded 
by many troubles, was easy, luxurious, and idle, till my 
father's affairs and her own aspirations sent her to 
America. She had dear friends among literary people, 
of whom I remember Mathias, Henry Milman, and Miss 
Landon; but till long after middle life she never her- 
self wrote a line for publication. 

In 1827 she went to America, having been partly 
instigated by the social and communistic ideas of a 



20 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

lady whom I well remember, — a certain Miss Wright, — 
who was, I think, the first of the American female 
lecturers. Her chief desire, however, was to establish 
my brother Henry; and perhaps joined with that was 
the additional object of breaking up her English home 
without pleading broken fortunes to all the world. At 
Cincinnati, in the State of Ohio, she built a bazaar, and 
I fancy lost all the money which may have been em- 
barked in that speculation. It could not have been 
much, and I think that others also must have suffered. 
But she looked about her, at her American cousins, 
and resolved to write a book about them. This book 
she brought back with her in 1831, and published it 
early in 1832. When she did this she was already 
fifty. When doing this she was aware that unless 
she could so succeed in making money, there was 
no money for any of the family. She had nevef 
before earned a shilling. She almost immediately 
received a considerable sum from the publishers, — if 
I remember rightly, amounting to two sums of £400 
each within a few months; and from that moment till 
nearly the time of her death, at any rate for more than 
twenty years, she was in the receipt of a considerable 
income from her writings. It was a late age at which 
to begin such a career. 

The Domestic Manners of the Americans was the first 
of a series of books of travels, of which it was probably 
the best, and was certainly the best known. It will not 
be too much to say of it that it had a material effect 
upon the manners of the Americans of the day, and 
that that effect has been fully appreciated by them. 
No observer was certainly ever less qualified to judge 
of the prospects or even of the happiness of a young 
people. No one could have been worse adapted by 



MY MOTHER 21 

nature for the task of learning whether a nation was in 
a way to thrive. Whatever she saw she judged, as 
most women do, from her own standing-point. If a 
thing were ugly to her eyes, it ought to be ugly to all 
eyes, — and if ugly, it must be bad. What though 
people had plenty to eat and clothes to wear, if they 
put their feet upon the tables and did not reverence 
their betters? The Americans were to her rough, 
uncouth, and vulgar, — and she told them so. Those 
communistic and social ideas, which had been so pretty 
in a drawing-room, were scattered to the winds. Her 
volumes were very bitter; but they were very clever, 
and they saved the family from ruin. 

Book followed book immediately, — first two novels, 
and then a book on Belgium and Western Germany. 
She refurnished the house which I have called Orley 
Farm, and surrounded us again with moderate com- 
forts. Of the mixture of joviality and industry which 
formed her character, it is almost impossible to speak 
with exaggeration. The industry was a thing apart, 
kept to herself. It was not necessary that any one 
who lived with her should see it. She was at her table 
at four in the morning, and had finished her work 
before the world had begun to be aroused. But the 
joviality was all for others. She could dance with 
other people's legs, eat and drink with other peo- 
ple's palates, be proud with the lustre of other people's 
finery. Every mother can do that for her own 
daughters; but she could do it for any girl whose look, 
and voice, and manners pleased her. Even when she 
was at work, the laughter of those she loved was a 
pleasure to her. She had much, very much, to suffer. 
Work sometimes came hard to her, so much being 
required, — for she was extravagant, and liked to have 



22 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

money to spend ; but of all people I have known she was 
the most joyous, or, at any rate, the most capable of joy. 

We continued this renewed life at Harrow for 
nearly two years, during which I was still at the 
school, and at the end of which I was nearly nineteen. 
Then there came a great catastrophe. My father, 
who, when he was well, lived a sad life among his 
monks and nuns, still kept a horse and gig. One day 
in March, 1834, just as it had been decided that I 
should leave the school then, instead of remaining, 
as had been intended, till midsummer, I was sum- 
moned very early in the morning, to drive him up 
to London. He had been ill, and must still have 
been very ill indeed when he submitted to be driven 
by any one. It was not till we had started that he 
told me that I was to put him on board the Ostend 
boat. This I did, driving him through the city down 
to the docks. It was not within his nature to be com- 
municative, and to the last he never told me why 
he was going to Ostend. Something of a general 
flitting abroad I had heard before, but why he should 
have flown first, and flown so suddenly, I did noc 
in the least know till I returned. When I got back 
with the gig, the house and furniture were all in 
the charge of the sheriff's officers. 

The gardener who had been with us in former 
days stopped me as I drove up the road, and with 
gestures, signs, and whispered words, gave me to^ 
understand that the whole affair — horse, gig, and har- 
ness — would be made prize of if I went but a few 
yards farther. Why they should not have been made 
prize of I do not know. The little piece of dishonest 
business which I at once took in hand and carried 
through successfully was of no special service to any 



MY MOTHER 23 

of US. I drove the gig into the village, and sold the 
entire equipage to the ironmonger for £17, the exact 
sum which he claimed as being due to himself. I was 
much complimented by the gardener, who seemed to 
think that so much had been rescued out of the fire. 
I fancy that the ironmonger was the only gainer by 
my smartness. 

When I got back to the house a scene of devasta- 
tion was in progress, which still was not without its 
amusement. My mother, through her various troubles, 
had contrived to keep a certain number of pretty- 
pretties which were dear to her heart. They were not 
much, for in those days the ornamentation of houses 
was not lavish as it is now; but there was some china, 
and a little glass, a few books, and a very moderate 
supply of household silver. These things, and things 
like them, were being carried down surreptitiously, 
through a gap between the two gardens, on to the prem- 
ises of our friend Colonel Grant. My two sisters, 
then sixteen and seventeen, and the Grant girls, 
who were just younger, were the chief marauders. 
To such forces I was happy to add myself for any 
enterprise, and between us we cheated the creditors 
to the extent of our powers, amidst the anathemas, 
but good-humoured abstinence from personal vio- 
lence, of the men in charge of the property. I still 
own a few books that were thus purloined. 

For a few days the whole family bivouacked under 
the Colonel's hospitable roof, cared for and comforted 
by that dearest of all women, his wife. Then we fol- 
lowed my father to Belgium, and established ourselves 
in a large house just outside the walls of Bruges. At 
this time, and till my father's death, everything was 
done with money earned by my mother. She now again 



24 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

furnished the house, — this being the third that she had 
put in order since she came back from America two 
years and a half ago. 

There were six of us went into this new banishment. 
My brother Henry had left Cambridge and was ill. 
My younger sister was ill. And though as yet we 
hardly told each other that it was so, we began to feel 
that that desolating fiend, consumption, was among 
us. My father was broken-hearted as well as ill, 
but whenever he could sit at his table he still worked 
at his ecclesiastical records. My elder sister and I 
were in good health, but I was an idle, desolate hanger- 
on, that most hopeless of human beings, a hobble- 
dehoy of nineteen, without any idea of a career, or 
a profession, or a trade. As well as I can remember 
I was fairly happy, for there were pretty girls at 
Bruges with whom I could fancy that I was in love ; and 
I had been removed from the real misery of school. 
But as to my future life I had not even an aspiration. 
Now and again there would arise a feeling that it 
was hard upon my mother that she should have to do 
so much for us, that we should be idle while she was 
forced to work so constantly; but we should probably 
have thought more of that had she not taken to work 
as though it were the recognised condition of life 
for an old lady of fifty-five. 

Then, by degrees, an established sorrow was at 
home among us. My brother was an invalid, and the 
horrid word, which of all words were for some years 
after the most dreadful to us, had been pronounced. 
It was no longer a delicate chest, and some temporary 
necessity for peculiar care, — but consumption ! The 
Bruges doctor had said so, and we knew that he was 
right. From that time forth my mother's most visible 



MY MOTHER 2$ 

occupation was that of nursing. There were two sick 
men in the house, and hers were the hands that tended 
them. The novels went on, of course. We had already- 
learned to know that they would be forthcoming at 
stated intervals, — and they always were forthcoming. 
The doctor's vials and the ink-bottle held equal places 
in my mother's rooms. I have written many novels 
under many circumstances; but I doubt much whether 
I could write one when my whole heart was by the bed- 
side of a dying son. Her power of dividing herself 
into two parts, and keeping her intellect by itself 
clear from the troubles of the world, and fit for the 
duty it had to do, 1 never saw equalled. I do not think 
that the writing of a novel is the most difficult task 
which a man may be called upon to do ; but it is a task 
that may be supposed to demand a spirit fairly at ease. 
The work of doing it with a troubled spirit killed Sir 
Walter Scott. My mother went through it unscathed 
in strength, though she performed all the work of day- 
nurse and night-nurse to a sick household; — for there 
were soon three of them dying. 

At this time there came from some quarter an offer 
to me of a commission in an Austrian cavalry regi- 
ment; and so it was apparently my destiny to be a 
soldier. But I must first learn German and French, of 
which languages I knew almost nothing. For this a 
year was allowed me, and in order that it might be 
accomplished without expense, I undertook the duties 
of a classical usher to a school then kept by William 
Drury at Brussels. Mr. Drury had been one of the 
masters at Harrow when I went there at seven years 
old, and is now, after an interval of fifty-three years, 
even yet officiating as clergyman at that place.i To 

^ He died two years after these words were written. 



26 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Brussels I went, and my heart still sinks within me 
as I reflect that any one should have intrusted to me 
the tuition of thirty boys. I can only hope that those 
boys went there to learn French, and that their parents 
were not particular as to their classical acquirements 
I remember that on two occasions I was sent to take 
the school out for a walk; but that after the second 
attempt Mrs. Drury declared that the boys' clothes 
would not stand any further experiments of that kind. 
I cannot call to mind any learning by me of other 
languages; but as I only remained in that position for 
six weeks, perhaps the return lessons had not been 
as yet commenced. At the end of the six weeks a 
letter reached me, offering me a clerkship in the Gen- 
eral Post Office, and I accepted it. Among my mother's 
dearest friends she reckoned Mrs. Freeling, the wife 
of Clayton Freeling, whose father, Sir Francis Free- 
ling, then ruled the Post Office. She had heard of 
my desolate position, and had begged from her father- 
in-law the offer of a berth in his own office. 

I hurried back from Brussels to Bruges on my way 
to London, and found that the number of invalids had 
been increased. My younger sister, Emily, who, when 
I had left the house, was trembling on the balance, — 
who had been pronounced to be delicate, but with 
that false-tongued hope which knows the truth, but 
will lie lest the heart should faint, had been called 
delicate, but only delicate, — was now ill. Of course 
she was doomed. I knew it of both of them, though 1 
had never heard the word spoken, or had spoken it to 
any one. And my father was very ill, — ill to dying, 
though I did not know it. And my mother had decreed 
to send my elder sister away to England, thinking 
that the vicinity of so much sickness might be injurious 



MY MOTHER 2^ 

to her. All this happened late in the autumn of 1834, 
in the spring of which year we had come to Bruges; 
and then my mother was left alone in a big house out- 
side the town, with two Belgian women-servants, to 
nurse these dying patients — the patients being her hus- 
band and children — and to write novels for the suste- 
nance of the family ! It was about this period of her 
career that her best novels were written. 

To my own initiation at the Post Office I will return 
in the next chapter. Just before Christmas my brother 
died, and was buried at Bruges. In the following Feb- 
ruary my father died, and was buried alongside of him, 
— and with him died that tedious task of his, which 
I can only hope may have solaced many of his latter 
hours. I sometimes look back, meditating for hours 
together, on his adverse fate. He was a man, finely 
educated, of great parts, with immense capacity for 
work, physically strong very much beyond the average 
of men, addicted to no vices, carried off by no pleasures, 
affectionate by nature, most anxious for the welfare 
of his children, born to fair fortunes, — who, when he 
started in the world, may be said to have had every- 
thing at his feet. But everything went wrong with 
him. The touch of his hand seemed to create failure. 
He embarked in one hopeless enterprise after another,? 
spending on each all the money he could at the time 
command. But the worse curse to him of all was a 
temper so irritable that even those whom he loved 
the best could not endure it. We were all estranged 
from him, and yet I believe that he would have given 
his heart's blood for any of us. His life as I knew it 
was one long tragedy. 

After his death my mother moved to England, and 
took and furnished a small house at Hadley, near 



28 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Barnet. I was then a clerk in the London Post Office, 
and I remember well how gay she made the place with 
little dinners, little dances, and little picnics, while she 
herself was at work every morning long before others 
had left their beds. But she did not stay at Hadley 
much above a year. She went up to London, where 
she again took and furnished a house, from which my 
remaining sister was married and carried away into 
Cumberland. My mother soon followed her, and on 
this occasion did more than take a house. She bought 
a bit of land, — a field of three acres near the town, — 
and built a residence for herself. This, I think, was 
in 1841, and she had thus established and re-established 
herself six times in ten years. But in Cumberland she 
found the climate too severe, and in 1844 she moved 
herself to Florence, where she remained till her death 
in 1863. She continued writing up to 1856, when she 
was seventy-six years old, — and had at that time pro- 
duced 114 volumes, of which the first was not written 
till she was fifty. Her career offers great encourage- 
ment to those who have not begun early in life, but 
are still ambitious to do something before they depart 
hence. 

She was an unselfish, affectionate, and most indus- 
trious woman, with great capacity for enjoyment and 
high physical gifts. She was endowed too, with much 
creative power, with considerable humour, and a 
genuine feeling for romance. But she was neither 
clear-sighted nor accurate; and in her attempts to 
describe morals, manners, and even facts, was unable 
to avoid the pitfalls of exaggeration. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 
1834- 184I 

While I was still learning my duty as an usher at 
Mr. Drury's school at Brussels, I was summoned to 
my clerkship in the London Post Office, and on my 
way passed through Bruges. I then saw my father and 
my brother Henry for the last time. A sadder house- 
hold never was held together. They were all dying; 
except my mother, who would sit up night after night 
nursing the dying ones and writing novels the while, 
— so that there might be a decent roof for them to 
die under. Had she failed to write the novels, I do 
not know where the roof would have been found. It 
is now more that forty years ago, and looking back 
over so long a lapse of time I can tell the story, though 
it be the story of my own father and mother, of my own 
brother and sister, almost as coldly as I have often 
done some scene of intended pathos in fiction; but that 
scene was indeed full of pathos. I was then becoming 
alive to the blighted ambition of my father's life, and 
becoming alive also to the violence of the strain which 
my mother was enduring. But I could do nothing but 
go and leave them. There was something that com- 
forted me in the idea that I need no longer be a burden, 
— a fallacious idea, as it soon proved. My salary was to 
be £90 a year, and on that I was to live in London. 
29 



30 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

keep up my character as a gentleman, and be happy. 
That I should have thought this possible at the age oi 
nineteen, and should have been delighted at being able 
to make the attempt, does not surprise me now; but 
that others should have thought it possible, friends 
v^ho knew something of the world, does astonish me. 
A lad might have done so, no doubt, or might do so 
even in these days, who was properly looked after and 
kept under control, — on whose behalf some law of life 
had been laid down. Let him pay so much a week for 
his board and lodging, so much for his clothes, so much 
for his washing, and then let him understand that he 
nas — shall we say? — sixpence a day left for pocket- 
money and omnibuses. Any one making the calcula- 
tion will find the sixpence far too much. No such cal- 
culation was made for me or by me. It was supposed 
that a sufficient income had been secured to me, and 
that I should live upon it as other clerks lived. 

But as yet the £90 a year was not secured to me. 
On reaching London I went to my friend Clayton 
Freeling, who was then secretary at the Stamp Office, 
and was taken by him to the scene of my future labours 
in St. Martin's le Grand. Sir Francis Freeling was 
the secretary, but he was greatly too high an official 
to be seen at first by a new junior clerk. I was taken, 
therefore, to his eldest son Henry Freeling, who was the 
assistant secretary, and by him I was examined as to 
my fitness. The story of that examination is given 
accurately in one of the opening chapters of a novel 
written by me, called The Three Clerks. If any reader 
of this memoir would refer to that chapter and see how 
Charley Tudor was supposed to have been admitted 
into the Internal Navigation Office, that reader will 
iearn how Anthony Trollope was actually admitted 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 3I 

into the Secretary's office of the General Post 
Office in 1834. I was asked to copy some lines 
from the Times newspaper with an old quill pen, 
and at once made a series of blots and false spell- 
ings. " That won't do, you know," said Henry Freeling 
to his brother Clayton. Clayton, who was my friend, 
urged that I was nervous, and asked that I might be 
allowed to do a bit of writing at home and bring it as 
a sample on the next day. I was then asked whether 
I was a proficient in arithmetic. What could I say? I 
had never learned the multiplication table, and had no 
more idea of the rule of three than of conic sections. 
" I know a little of it," I said humbly, whereupon I 
was sternly assured that on the morrow, should I suc- 
ceed in showing that my handwriting was all that it 
ought to be, I should be examined as to that little of 
arithmetic. If that little should not be found to com- 
prise a thorough knowledge of all the ordinary rules, 
together with practised and quick skill, my career in 
life could not be made at the Post Office. Going down 
the main stairs of the building, — stairs which have I 
believe been now pulled down to make room for sorters 
and stampers, — Clayton Freeling told me not to be too 
down-hearted. I was myself inclined to think that I 
had better go back to the school in Brussels. But 
nevertheless I went to work, and under the surveil- 
lance of my elder brother made a beautiful transcript 
of four or five pages of Gibbon. With a faltering 
heart I took these on the next day to the office. With 
my caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that 
I should come to the ground among the figures. But 
when I got to " The Grand," as we used to call our 
office in those days, from its site in St. Martin's le 
Grand, I was seated at a desk without any further 



32 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

reference to my competency. No one condescended 
even to look at my beautiful penmanship. 

That was the way in which candidates for the Civil 
Service were examined in my young days. It was 
at any rate the way in which I was examined. Since 
that time there has been a very great change indeed ; — 
and in some respects a great improvement. But in 
regard to the absolute fitness of the young men selected 
for the public service, I doubt whether more harm has 
not been done than good. And I think that good might 
have been done without the harm. The rule of the 
present day is, that every place shall be open to public 
competition, and that it shall be given to the best 
among the comers. I object to this, that at present 
there exists no known mode of learning who is best, 
and that the method employed has no tendency to elicit 
the best. That method pretends only to decide who 
among a certain number of lads will best answer a 
string of questions, for the answering of which they 
are prepared by tutors, who have sprung up for the 
purpose since this fashion of election has been adopted. 
When it is decided in a family that a boy shall " try 
the Civil Service," he is made to undergo a certain 
amount of cramming. But such treatment has, I 
maintain, no connection whatever with education. The 
lad is no better fitted after it than he was before for 
the future work of his life. But his very success fills 
him with false ideas of his own educational standing, 
and so far unfits him. And, by the plan now in vogue, 
it has come to pass that no one is in truth responsible 
either for the conduct, the manners, or even for the 
character of the youth. The responsibility was per- 
haps slight before ; but existed, and was on the increase. 

There might have been, — in some future time of 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 33 

Still increased wisdom, there yet may be, — a department 
established to test the fitness of acolytes without 
recourse to the dangerous optimism of competitive 
choice. I will not say but that there should have been 
some one to reject me, — though I will have the hardi- 
hood to say that, had I been so rejected, the Civil 
Service would have lost a valuable public servant. 
This is a statement that will not, I think, be denied 
by those who, after I am gone, may remember any- 
thing of my work. Lads, no doubt, should not be 
admitted who have none of the small acquirements 
that are wanted. Our offices should not be schools 
in which writing and early lessons in geography, 
arithmetic, or French should be learned. But all that 
could be ascertained without the perils of competitive 
examination. 

The desire to insure the efficiency of the young men 
selected, has not been the only object — perhaps not 
the chief object — of those who have yielded in this 
matter to the arguments of the reformers. There had 
arisen in England a system of patronage, under which 
it had become gradually necessary for politicians to 
use their influence for the purchase of political support. 
A member of the House of Commons, holding office, 
who might chance to have five clerkships to give away 
in a year, found himself compelled to distribute them 
among those who sent him to the House. In this 
there was nothing pleasant to the distributer of patron- 
age. Do away with the system altogether, and he would 
have as much chance of support as another. He bartered 
his patronage only because another did so also. The 
beggings, the refusings, the jealousies, the correspon- 
dence, were simply troublesome. Gentlemen in office 
were not therefore indisposed to rid themselves of the 



34 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

care of patronage. I have no doubt their hands are 
the cleaner and their hearts are the lighter; but I do 
doubt whether the offices are on the whole better 
manned. 

As what I now write will certainly never be read 
till I am dead, I may dare to say what no one now 
does dare to say in print, — though some of us whisper 
it occasionally into our friends' ears. There are places 
in life which can hardly be well filled except by 
" Gentlemen." The word is one the use of which 
almost subjects one to ignominy. If I say that a judge 
should be a gentleman, or a bishop, I am met with a 
scornful allusion to " Nature's Gentlemen." Were I 
to make such an assertion with reference to the House 
of Commons, nothing that I ever said again would 
receive the slightest attention. A man in public life 
could not do himself a greater injury than by saying 
in public that the commissions in the army or navy, 
or berths in the Civil Service, should be given exclu- 
sively to gentlemen. He would be defied to define the 
term, — and would fail should he attempt to do so. But 
he would know what he meant, and so very probably 
would they who defied him. It may be that the 
son of a butcher of the village shall become as well 
fitted for employments requiring gentle culture as the 
son of the parson. Such is often the case. When 
such is the case, no one has been more prone to 
give the butcher's son all the welcome he has mer- 
ited than I myself; but the chances are greatly in 
favour of the parson's son. The gates of the one 
class should be open to the other; but neither to the 
one class nor to the other can good be done by de- 
claring that there are no gates, no barrier, no differ- 
ence. The system of competitive examination is, I 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 35 

think, based on a supposition that there is no 
difference. 

I got into my place without any examining. Look- 
ing back now, I think I can see with accuracy what 
was then the condition of my own mind and intel- 
ligence. Of things to be learned by lessons I knew 
almost less than could be supposed possible after the 
amount of schooling I had received. I could read 
neither French, Latin, nor Greek. I could speak no 
foreign language, — and I may as well say here as 
elsewhere that I never acquired the power of really 
talking French. I have been able to order my dinner 
and take a railway ticket, but never got much beyond 
that. Of the merest rudiments of the sciences I was 
completely ignorant. My handwriting was in truth 
wretched. My spelling was imperfect. There was no 
subject as to which examination would have been pos- 
sible on which I could have gone through an exami- 
nation otherwise than disgracefully. And yet I think 
I knew more than the average young men of the same 
rank who began life at nineteen. I could have given 
a fuller list of the names of the poets of all countries, 
with their subjects and periods, — and probably of 
historians, — than many others; and had, perhaps, a 
more accurate idea of the manner in which my own 
country was governed. I knew the names of all the 
Bishops, all the Judges, all the Heads of Colleges, and 
all the Cabinet Ministers, — not a very useful knowledge 
indeed, but one that had not been acquired without 
other matter which was more useful. I had read Shake- 
speare and Byron and Scott, and could talk about them. 
The music of the Miltonic line was familiar to me. I 
had already made up my mind that Pride and Prejudice 
was the best novel in the English language, — a palm 



36 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which I only partially withdrew after a second reading 
of Ivanhoe, and did not completely bestow elsewhere 
till Esmond was written. And though I would occa- 
sionally break down in my spelling, I could write a 
letter. If I had a thing to say, I could so say it in written 
words that the readers should know what I meant, — 
a power which is by no means at the command of 
all those who come out from these competitive exami- 
nations with triumph. Early in life, at the age of fifteen, 
I had commenced the dangerous habit of keeping a 
journal, and this I maintained for ten years. The 
volumes remained in my possession unregarded — never 
looked at — till 1870, when I examined them, and, 
with many blushes, destroyed them. They convicted 
me of folly, ignorance, indiscretion, idleness, extrav- 
agance, and conceit. But they had habituated me to 
the rapid use of pen and ink, and taught me how to 
express myself with facility. 

I will mention here another habit which had grown 
upon me from still earlier years, — which I myself often 
regarded with dismay when I thought of the hours 
devoted to it, but which, I suppose, must have tended 
to make me what I have been. As a boy, even as a 
child, I was thrown much upon myself: I have 
explained, when speaking of my school-days, how it 
came to pass that other boys would not play with me. 
I was therefore alone, and had to form my plays within 
myself. Play of some kind was necessary to me then, 
as it always has been. Study was not my bent, and I 
could not please myself by being all idle. Thus it 
came to pass that I was always going about with some 
castle in the air firmly built within my mind. Nor 
were these efiforts in architecture spasmodic, or sub- 
ject to constant change from day to day. For weeks, 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 37 

for months, if 1 remember rightly, from year to year, 
I would carry on the same tale, binding myself down 
to certain laws, to certain proportions, and proprieties, 
and unities. Nothing impossible was ever introduced, 
— nor even anything which, from outward circum- 
stances, would seem to be violently improbable. I 
myself was of course my own hero. Such is a necessity 
of castle-building. But I never became a king, or a 
duke, — much less when my height and personal appear- 
ance were fixed could I be an Antinous, or six feet 
high. I never was a learned man, nor even a philos- 
opher. But I was a very clever person, and beautiful 
young women used to be fond of me. And I strove 
to be kind of heart, and open of hand, and noble in 
thought, despising mean things; and altogether I was 
a very much better fellow than I have ever succeeded 
in being since. This had been the occupation of my life 
for six or seven years before I went to the Post Office, 
and was by no means abandoned when I commenced 
my work. There can, I imagine, hardly be a more 
dangerous mental practice; but I have often doubted 
whether, had it not been my practice, I should ever 
have written a novel. I learned in this way to main- 
tain an interest in a fictitious story, to dwell on a work 
created by my own imagination, and to live in a world 
altogether outside the world of my own material life. 
In after years I have done the same, — with this differ- 
ence, that I have discarded the hero of my early dreams, 
and have been able to lay my own identity aside. 

I must certainly acknowledge that the first seven 
years of my official life were neither creditable to 
myself nor useful to the public service. These seven 
years were passed in London, and during this period 
of my life it ^vas my duty to be present every morning 



38 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

at the office punctually at lo a. m. I think I com- 
menced my quarrels with the authorities there by 
having in my possession a watch which was always ten 
minutes late. I know that I very soon achieved a 
character for irregularity, and came to be regarded 
as a black sheep by men around me who were not 
themselves, I think, very good public servants. From 
time to time rumours reached me that if I did not take 
care I should be dismissed; especially one rumour in 
my early days, through my dearly beloved friend Mrs. 
Clayton Freeling, — who, as I write this, is still living, 
and who, with tears in her eyes, besought me to think 
of my mother. That was during the life of Sir Francis 
Freeling, who died, — still in harness, — a little more 
than twelve months after I joined the office. And yet 
the old man showed me signs of almost affectionate 
kindness, writing to me with his own hand more than 
once from his death-bed. 

Sir Francis Freeling was followed at the Post Office 
by Colonel Maberly, who certainly was not my friend. 
I do not know that I deserved to find a friend in my 
new master, but I think that a man with better judg- 
ment would not have formed so low an opinion of 
me as he did. Years have gone by, and I can write 
now, and almost feel, without anger; but I can remem- 
ber well the keenness of my anguish when I was treated 
as though I were unfit for any useful work. I did 
struggle — not to do the work, for there was nothing 
which was not easy without any struggling — but to 
show that I was willing to do it. My bad character 
nevertheless stuck to me, and was not to be got rid 
of by any efforts within my power. I do admit that I 
was irregular. It was not considered to be much 
in my favour that I could write letters — which was 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 39 

mainly the work of our office — rapidly, correctly, and 
to the purpose. The man who came at ten, and who 
was always still at his desk at half-past four, was 
preferred before me, though when at his desk he might 
be less efficient. Such preference was no doubt proper; 
but, with a little encouragement, I also would have 
been punctual. I got credit for nothing and was 
reckless. 

As it was, the conduct of some of us was very 
bad. There was a comfortable sitting-room up-stairs, 
devoted to the use of some one of our number who 
in turn was required to remain in the place all night. 
Hither one or two of us would adjourn after lunch, 
and play ecarte for an hour or two. I do not know 
whether such ways are possible now in our public 
offices. And here we used to have suppers and card- 
parties at night — great symposiums, with much smok- 
ing of tobacco; for in our part of the building 
there lived a whole bevy of clerks. These were gentle- 
men whose duty it then was to make up and receive 
the foreign mails. I do not remember that they worked 
later or earlier than the other sorting-clerks; but there 
was supposed to be something special in foreign letters, 
which required that the men who handled them should 
have minds undistracted by the outer world. Their 
salaries, too, were higher than those of their more 
homely brethren; and they paid nothing for their 
lodgings. Consequently there was a somewhat fast 
set in those apartments, given to cards and to tobacco, 
who drank spirits and water in preference to tea. I 
was not one of them, but was a good deal with them. 

I do not know that I should interest my readers 
by saying much of my Post Office experiences in those 
days. I was always on the eve of being dismissed, 



40 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and yet was always striving to show how good a 
public servant I could become, if only a chance were 
given me. But the chance went the wrong way. On 
one occasion, in the performance of my duty, I had 
to put a private letter containing bank-notes on the 
secretary's table, — which letter I had duly opened, as 
it was not marked private. The letter was seen by 
the Colonel, but had not been moved by him when he 
left the room. On his return it was gone. In the 
meantime I had returned to the room, again in the 
performance of some duty. When the letter was 
missed I was sent for, and there I found the Colonel 
much moved about his letter, and a certain chief clerk, 
who, with a long face, was making suggestions as to 
the probable fate of the money. " The letter has been 
taken," said the Colonel, turning to me angrily, " and, 

by G ! there has been nobody in the room but 

you and I." As he spoke, he thundered his fist down 

upon the table. " Then," said I, " by G ! you 

have taken it." And I also thundered my fist down; 
— but, accidentally, not upon the table. There was 
there a standing movable desk, at which, I presume, 
it was the Colonel's habit to write, and on this movable 
desk was a large bottle full of ink. My fist unfortu- 
nately came on the desk, and the ink at once flew up, 
covering the Colonel's face and shirt-front. Then it 
was a sight to see that senior clerk, as he seized a 
quire of blotting-paper, and rushed to the aid of his 
superior officer, striving to mop up the ink ; and a sight 
also to see the Colonel, in his agony, hit right out 
through the blotting-paper at that senior clerk's unof- 
fending stomach. At that moment there came in the 
Colonel's private secretary, with the letter and the 
money, and I was desired to go back to my own room. 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 4I 

This was an incident not much in my favour, though 
I do not know that it did me special harm. 

I was always in trouble. A young woman down 
in the country had taken it into her head that she 
would like to marry me, — and a very foolish young 
woman she must have been to entertain such a wish. 
I need not tell that part of the story more at length, 
otherwise than by protesting that no young man in 
such a position was ever much less to blame than I 
had been in this. The invitation had come from her, 
and I had lacked the pluck to give it a decided negative ; 
but I had left the house within half an hour, going 
away without my dinner, and had never returned to 
it. Then there was a correspondence, — if that can be 
called a correspondence in which all the letters came 
from one side. At last the mother appeared at the 
Post Office. My hair almost stands on my head now 
as I remember the figure of the woman walking into 
the big room in which I sat with six or seven other 
clerks, having a large basket on her arm and an 
immense bonnet on her head. The messenger had 
vainly endeavoured to persuade her to remain in the 
ante-room. She followed the man in, and walking up 
the centre of the room, addressed me in a loud voice: 
"Anthony Trollope, when are you going to marry 
my daughter ? " We have all had our worst moments, 
and that was one of my worst. I lived through it, 
however, and did not marry the young lady. These 
little incidents were all against me in the office. 

And then a certain other phase of my private life 
crept into official view, and did me a damage. As I 
shall explain just now, I rarely at this time had any 
money wherewith to pay my bills. In this state of 
things a certain tailor had taken from me an accept- 



42 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ance for, I think, £12, which found its way into the 
hands of a money-lender. With that man, who lived 
in a little street near Mecklenburgh Square, I formed 
a most heart-rending but a most intimate acquaintance. 
In cash I once received from him £4. For that and 
for the original amount of the tailor^s bill, which 
grew monstrously under repeated renewals, I paid 
ultimately something over £200. That is so common 
a story as to be hardly worth the telling; but the 
peculiarity of this man was that he became so attached 
to me as to visit me every day at my office. For a long 
period he found it to be worth his while to walk up 
those stone steps daily, and come and stand behind 
my chair, whispering to me always the same words: 
" Now I wish you would be punctual. If you only 
would be punctual, I should like you to have any- 
thing you want." He was a little, clean, old man, 
who always wore a high starched white cravat 
inside of which he had a habit of twisting his chin 
as he uttered his caution. When I remember the 
constant persistency of his visits, I cannot but feel 
that he was paid very badly for his time and trouble. 
Those visits were very terrible, and can have hardly 
been of service to me in the office. 

Of one other misfortune which happened to me in 
those days I must tell the tale. A junior clerk in the 
secretary's office was always told off to sleep upon the 
premises, and he was supposed to be the presiding 
genius of the establishment when the other members 
of the Secretary's department had left the building. 
On an occasion when I was still little more than a lad, 
— perhaps one-and-twenty years old, — I was filling 
this responsible position. At about seven in the 
evening word was brought to me that the Queen of^ 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 43 

— I think Saxony, but I am sure it was a Queen, — 
wanted to see the night mails sent out. At this time, 
when there were many mail-coaches, this was a show, 
and august visitors would sometimes come to see it. 
But preparation was generally made beforehand, and 
some pundit of the office would be at hand to do the 
honours. On this occasion we were taken by surprise, 
and there was no pundit. I therefore gave the orders, 
and accompanied her Majesty around the building, 
walking backwards, as I conceived to be proper, and 
often in great peril as I did so, up and down the stairs. 
I was, however, quite satisfied with my own manner 
of performing an unaccustomed and most important 
duty. There were two old gentlemen with her Majesty, 
who, no doubt, were German barons, and an ancient 
baroness also. They had come and, when they had 
seen the sights, took their departure in two glass 
coaches. As they were preparing to go, I saw the 
two barons consulting together in deep whispers, and 
then as the result of that conversation one of them 
handed me a half-a-crown ! That also was a bad 
moment. 

I came up to town, as I said before, purporting 
to live a jolly life upon £90 per annum. I remained 
seven years in the General Post Office, and when I 
left it my income was £140. During the whole of 
this time I was hopelessly in debt. There were two 
intervals, amounting together to nearly two years, in 
which I lived with my mother, and therefore lived in 
comfort, — but even then I was overwhelmed with debt. 
She paid much for me, — paid all that I asked her to 
pay, and all that she could find out that I owed. But 
who in such a condition ever tells all and makes a 
clean breast of it? The debts, of course, were not 



44 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

large, but I cannot think now how I could have lived, 
and sometimes have enjoyed life, with such a burden 
of duns as I endured. Sheriff's officers with uncanny- 
documents, of which I never understood anything, 
were common attendants on me. And yet I do not 
remember that I was ever locked up, though I think 
I was twice a prisoner. In such emergencies some one 
paid for me. And now, looking back at it, I have to 
ask myself whether my youth was very wicked. I 
did no good in it; but was there fair ground for 
expecting good from me? When I reached London 
no mode of life was prepared for me, — no advice even 
given to me. I went into lodgings, and then had to dis- 
pose of my time. I belonged to no club, and knew 
very few friends who would receive me into their 
houses. In such a condition of life a young man 
should no doubt go home after his work, and spend 
the long hours of the evening in reading good books 
and drinking tea. A lad brought up by strict parents, 
and without having had even a view of gayer things, 
might perhaps do so. I had passed all my life at 
public schools, where I had seen gay things, but had 
never enjoyed them. Towards the good books and 
tea no training had been given me. There was no 
house in which I could habitually see a lady's face 
and hear a lady's voice. No allurement to decent 
respectability came in my way. It seems to me that 
in such circumstances the temptations of loose life 
will almost certainly prevail with a young man. Of 
course if the mind be strong enough, and the general 
stuff knitted together of sufficiently stern material, the 
temptations will not prevail. But such minds and such 
material are, I think, uncommon. The temptation at 
any rate prevailed with me. 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 45 

I wonder how many young men fall utterly to 
pieces from being turned loose into London after the 
same fashion. Mine was, I think, of all phases of 
such life the most dangerous. The lad who is sent to 
mechanical work has longer hours, during which he 
is kept from danger, and has not generally been 
taught in his boyhood to anticipate pleasure. He looks 
for hard work and grinding circumstances. I certainly 
had enjoyed but little pleasure, but I had been among 
those who did enjoy it and were taught to expect it. 
And I had filled my mind with the ideas of such 
joys. 

And now, except during official hours, I was entirely 
without control, — without the influences of any decent 
household around me. I have said something of the 
comedy of such life, but it certainly had its tragic 
aspect. Turning it all over in my own mind, as I 
have constantly done in after years, the tragedy has 
always been uppermost. And so it was as the time 
was passing. Could there be any escape from such 
dirt? I would ask myself; and I always answered 
that there was no escape. The mode of life was itself 
wretched. I hated the office. I hated my work. More 
than all I hated my idleness. I had often told my-self 
since I left school that the only career in life within 
my reach was that of an author, and the only mode of 
authorship open to me that of a writer of novels. In 
the journal which I read and destroyed a few years 
since, I found the matter argued out before I had been 
in the Post Office two years. Parliament was out of 
the question. I had not means to go to the Bar. In 
official life, such as that to which I had been intro- 
duced, there did not seem to be any opening for real 
success. Pens and paper I could command. Poetry 



46 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I did not believe to be within my grasp. The drama, 
too, which I would fain have chosen, I believed to 
be above me. For history, biography, or essay writing 
I had not sufficient erudition. But I thought it possi- 
ble that I might write a novel. I had resolved very 
early that in that shape must the attempt be made. 
But the months and years ran on, and no attempt was 
made. And yet no day was passed without thoughts 
of attempting, and a mental acknowledgment of the 
disgrace of postponing it. What reader will not 
understand the agony of remorse produced by such 
a condition of mind? The gentleman from Mecklen- 
burgh Square was always with me in the morning, 
— always angering me by his hateful presence, — but 
when the evening came I could make no struggle 
towards getting rid of him. 

In those days I read a little, and did learn to read 
French and Latin. I made myself familiar with 
Horace, and became acquainted with the works of our 
own greatest poets. I had my strong enthusiasms, 
and remember throwing out of the window in 
Northumberland Street, where I lived, a volume of 
Johnson's Lives of the Poets, because he spoke sneer- 
ingly of Lycidas. That was Northumberland Street 
by the Marylebone Workhouse, on to the back-door of 
which establishment my room looked out — a most 
dreary abode, at which I fancy I must have almost 
ruined the good-natured lodging-house keeper by my 
constant inability to pay her what I owed. 

How I got my daily bread I can hardly remember. 
But I do remember that I was often unable to get 
myself a dinner. Young men generally now have 
their meals provided for them. I kept house, as it 
were. Every day I had to find myself with the day's 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 47 

food. For my breakfast I could get some credit at 
the lodgings, though that credit would frequently come 
to an end. But for all that I had often breakfast to pay 
day by day; and at your eating-house credit is not 
given. I had no friends on whom I could sponge reg- 
ularly. Out on the Fulham Road I had an uncle, but 
his house was four miles from the Post Office, and 
almost as far from my own lodgings. Then came bor- 
rowings of money, sometimes absolute want, and 
almost constant misery. 

Before I tell how it came about that I left this 
wretched life, I must say a word or two of the friend- 
ships which lessened its misfortunes. My earliest 
friend in life was John Merivale, with whom I had 
been at school at Sunbury and Harrow, and who 
was a nephew of my tutor, Harry Drury. Herman 
Merivale, who afterwards became my friend, was his 
brother, as is also Charles Merivale, the historian and 
Dean of Ely. I knew John when I was ten years 
old, and am happy to be able to say that he is going 
to dine with me one day this week. I hope I may not 
injure his character by stating that in those days 
I lived very much with him. He, too, was impecu- 
nious, but he had a home in London, and knew but 
little of the sort of penury which I endured. For 
more than fifty years he and I have been close friends. 
And then there was one W A , whose mis- 
fortunes in life will not permit me to give his full 
name, but whom I dearly loved. He had been at 
Winchester and at Oxford, and at both places had 
fallen into trouble. He then became a schoolmaster, 
— or perhaps I had better say usher, — and finally he 
took orders. But he was unfortunate in all things, 
and died some years ago in poverty. He was most 



48 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

perverse; bashful to very fear of a lady's dress; 
unable to restrain himself in anything, but yet with a 
conscience that was always stinging him ; a loving 
friend, though very quarrelsome; and, perhaps, of all 
men I have known, the most humorous. And he was 
entirely unconscious of his own humour. He did not 
know that he could so handle all matters as to create 

infinite amusement out of them. Poor W A ! 

To him there came no happy turning-point at which 
life loomed seriously on him, and then became 
prosperous. 

W A , Merivale, and I formed a little club, 

which we called the Tramp Society, and subjected to 
certain rules, in obedience to which we wandered on 
foot about the counties adjacent to London. South- 
ampton was the furthest point we ever reached; but 
Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire were more dear to 
us. These were the happiest hours of my then life — • 
and perhaps not the least innocent, although we were 
frequently in peril from the village authorities whom 
we outraged. Not to pay for any conveyance, never to 
spend above five shillings a day, to obey all orders from 
the elected ruler of the hour (this enforced under heavy 
fines), were among our statutes. I would fain tell here 

some of our adventures: — how A enacted an 

escaped madman and we his pursuing keepers, and so 
got ourselves a lift in a cart, from which we ran away 
as we approached the lunatic asylum; how we were 
turned out of a little town at night, the townsfolk fright- 
ened by the loudness of our mirth; and how we once 
crept into a hayloft and were wakened in the dark 
morning by a pitchfork, — and how the juvenile owner 
of that pitchfork fled through the window when he 
heard the complaints of the wounded man! But the 



THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 49 

fun was the fun of W A , and would cease to 

be fun as told by me. 

It was during these years that John Tilley, who has 
now been for many years the permanent senior officer 
of the Post Office, married my sister, whom he took 
with him into Cumberland, where he was stationed as 
one of our surveyors. He has been my friend for more 
than forty years; as has also Peregrine Birch, a clerk 
in the House of Lords, who married one of those daugh- 
ters of Colonel Grant who assisted us in the raid we 
made on the goods which had been seized by the 
Sheriff's officer at Harrow. These have been the oldest 
and dearest friends of my life, and I can thank God that 
three of them are still alive. 

When I had been nearly seven years in the Secre- 
tary's office of the Post Office, always hating my posi- 
tion there, and yet always fearing that I should be dis- 
missed from it, there came a way of escape. There had 
latterly been created in the service a new body of offi- 
cers called surveyors' clerks. There were at that time 
seven surveyors in England, two in Scotland and three 
in Ireland. To each of these officers a clerk had been 
lately attached, whose duty it was to travel about the 
country under the surveyor's orders. There had been 
m.uch doubt among the young men in the office whether 
they should or should not apply for these places. The 
emoluments were good and the work alluring ; but there 
was at first supposed to be something derogatory in the 
position. There was a rumour that the first surveyor 
who got a clerk sent the clerk out to fetch his beer, and 
that another had called upon his clerk to send the linen 
to the wash. There was, however, a conviction that 
nothing could be worse than the berth of a surveyor's 
clerk in Ireland. The clerks were all appointed, how- 



50 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ever. To me it had not occurred to ask for anything, 
nor would anything have been given me. But after a 
while there came a report from the far west of Ireland 
that the man sent there was absurdly incapable. It was 
probably thought then that none but a man absurdly 
incapable would go on such a mission to the west of 
Ireland. When the report reached the London office I 
was the first to read it. I was at that time in dire 
trouble, having debts on my head and quarrels with our 
Secretary-Colonel, and a full conviction that my life 
was taking me downwards to the lowest pits. So I 
went to the Colonel boldly, and volunteered for Ireland 
if he would send me. He was glad to be so rid of me, 
and I went. This happened in August, 1841, when I 
was twenty-six years old. My salary in Ireland was 
to be but £100 a year; but I was to receive fifteen shil- 
lings a day for every day that I was away from home, 
and sixpence for every mile that I travelled. The same 
allowances were made in England; but at that time 
travelling in Ireland was done at half the English 
prices. My income in Ireland, after paying my ex- 
penses, became at once £400. This was the first good 
fortune of my life. 



CHAPTER IV 

IRELAND MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 

184 I -1848 

In the preceding pages I have given a short record of 
the first twenty-six years of my life, — years of suffer- 
ing, disgrace, and inward remorse. I fear that my 
mode of telling will have left an idea simply of their 
absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched, — sometimes 
almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in 
which I was born. There had clung to me a feeling 
that T had been looked upon always as an evil, an 
encumbrance, a useless thing, — as a creature of whom 
those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I 
feel certain now that in my young days I was so re- 
garded. Even my few friends who had found with me 
a certain capacity for enjoyment were half afraid of 
me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to 
be loved, — of a strong wish to be popular with my asso- 
ciates. No child, no boy, no lad, no young man, had 
ever been less so. And I had been so poor, and so little 
able to bear poverty. But from the day on which I set 
my foot in Ireland all these evils went away from me. 
Since that time who has had a happier life than mine? 
Looking round upon all those I know, I cannot put my 
hand upon one. But all is not over yet. And, mindful 
of that, remembering how great is the agony of adver- 
sity, how crushing the despondency of degradation, how 

51 



52 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

susceptible I am myself to the misery coming from con- 
tempt, — remembering also how quickly good things may 
go and evil things come, — I am often again tempted to 
hope, almost to pray, that the end may be near. Things 
may be going well now — 

"Sin aliquem infandum casum, Fortuna, minaris; 
Nunc, o nunc liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam." 

There is unhappiness so great that the very fear of it 
is an alloy to happiness. I had then lost my father, and 
sister, and brother, — have since lost another sister and 
my mother; — but I have never as yet lost a wife or a 
child. 

When I told my friends that I was going on this 
mission to Ireland they shook their heads, but said 
nothing to dissuade me. I think it must have been evi- 
dent to all who were my friends that my life in London 
was not a success. My mother and elder brother were 
at this time abroad, and were not consulted; — did not 
even know my intention in time to protest against it. 
Indeed, I consulted no one, except a dear old cousin, 
our family lawyer, from whom I borrowed £200 to help 
me out of England. He lent me the money, and looked 
upon me with pitying eyes — shaking his head. "After 
all, you were right to go," he said to me when I paid 
him the money a few years afterwards. 

But nobody then thought I was right to go. To be- 
come clerk to an Irish surveyor, in Connaught, with a 
salary of f 100 a year, at twenty-six years of age ! I did 
not think it right even myself, — except that anything 
was right which would take me away from the General 
Post Office and from London. 

My ideas of the duties I was to perform were very 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 53 

vague, as were also my ideas of Ireland generally. 
Hitherto I had passed my time, seated at a desk, either 
writing letters myself, or copying into books those 
which others had written. I had never been called upon 
to do anything I was unable or unfitted to do. I now 
understood that in Ireland I was to be a deputy-in- 
spector of country post offices, and that among other 
things to be inspected would be the postmasters' 
accounts ! But as no other person asked a question as 
to my fitness for this work, it seemed unnecessary for 
me to do so. 

On the 15th of September, 1841, I landed in Dublin, 
without an acquaintance in the country, and with only 
two or three letters of introduction from a brother clerk 
in the Post Office. I had learned to think that Ireland 
was a land flowing with fun and whisky, in which irreg- 
ularity was the rule of life, and where broken heads^ 
were looked upon as honourable badges. I was to live 
at a place called Banagher, on the Shannon, which 1 
had heard of because of its having once been conquered, 
though it had heretofore conquered everything, includ- 
ing the devil. And from Banagher my inspecting tours 
were to be made, chiefly into Connaught, but also over 
a strip of country eastwards, which would enable me 
occasionally to run up to Dublin. I went to a hotel 
which was very dirty, and after dinner I ordered some 
whisky punch. There was an excitement in this, but 
when the punch was gone I was very dull. It seemed so 
strange to be in a country in which there was not a 
single individual whom I had ever spoken to or ever 
seen. And it was to be my destiny to go down into 
Connaught and adjust accounts, — the destiny of me 
who had never learned the multiplication table, or done 
a sum in long division ! 



54 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

On the next morning I called on the Secretary of the 
Irish Post Office, and learned from him that Colonel 
Maberly had sent a very bad character with me. He 
could not have sent a very good one; but I felt a little 
hurt when I was informed by this new master that he 
had been informed that I was worthless, and must, in 
all probability, be dismissed. "But," said the new mas- 
ter, "I shall judge you by your own merits." From that 
time to the day on which I left the service, I never 
heard a word of censure, nor had many months passed 
before I found that my services were valued. Before a 
year was over, I had acquired the character of a thor- 
oughly good public servant. 

The time went very pleasantly. Some adventures I 
had ; — two of which I told in the Tales of All Countries, 
under the names of The O'Conors of Castle Conor, and 
Father Giles of Ballymoy. I will not swear to every 
detail in these stories, but the main purport of each is 
true. I could tell many others of the same nature, were 
this the place for them. I found that the surveyor to 
whom I had been sent kept a pack of hounds, and there- 
fore I bought a hunter. I do not think he liked it, but 
he could not well complain. He never rode to hounds 
himself, but I did; and then and thus began one of the 
great joys of my life. I have ever since been constant 
to the sport, having learned to love it with an affection 
which I cannot myself fathom or understand. Surely 
no man has laboured at it as I have done, or hunted 
under such drawbacks as to distances, money, and nat- 
ural disadvantages. I am very heavy, very blind, have 
been — in reference to hunting — a poor man, and am 
now an old man. I have often had to travel all night 
outside a mail-coach, in order that I might hunt the 
jiext day. Nor have I ever been in truth a good horse- 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 55 

man. And I have passed the greater part of my hunting 
life under the discipline of the Civil Service. But it 
has been for more than thirty years a duty to me to ride 
to hounds; and I have performed that duty with a per- 
sistent energy. Nothing has ever been allowed to stand 
in the way of hunting, — neither the writing of books, 
nor the work of the Post Office, nor other pleasures. 
\s regarded the Post Office, it soon seemed to be under- 
stood that I was to hunt; and when my services were 
re-transferred to England, no word of difficulty ever 
reached me about it. I have written on very many sub- 
jects, and on most of them with pleasure, but on no 
subject with such delight as that on hunting. I have 
dragged it into many novels, — into too many, no 
doubt, — but I have always felt myself deprived of a 
legitimate joy when the nature of the tale has not 
allowed me a hunting chapter. Perhaps that which 
gave me the greatest delight was the description of a 
run on a horse accidentally taken from another sports- 
man — a circumstance which occurred to my dear friend 
Charles Buxton, who will be remembered as one of the 
members for Surrey. 

It was altogether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland. 
I was always moving about, and soon found myself to 
be in pecuniary circumstances which were opulent in 
comparison with those of my past life. The Irish people 
did not murder me, nor did they even break my head. I 
soon found them to be good-humoured, clever — the 
working classes very much more intelligent than those 
of England — economical, and hospitable. We hear 
much of their spendthrift nature; but extravagance is 
not the nature of an Irishman. He will count the shil- 
lings in a pound much more accurately than an English- 
man, and will with much more certainty get twelve 



56 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pennyworth from each. But they are perverse, irra- 
tional, and but little bound by the love of truth. I lived 
for many years among them — not finally leaving the 
country until 1859, and I had the means of studying 
their character. 

I had not been a fortnight in Ireland before I was 
sent down to a little town in the far west of county 
Galway, to balance a defaulting postmaster's accounts, 
find out how much he owed, and report upon his capac- 
ity to pay. In these days such accounts are very simple. 
They adjust themselves from day to day, and a Post 
Office surveyor has nothing to do with them. At that 
time, though the sums dealt with were small, the forms 
of dealing with them were very intricate, I went to 
work, however, and made that defaulting postmaster 
teach me the use of those forms. I then succeeded in 
balancing the account, and had no difficulty whatever 
in reporting that he was altogether unable to pay his 
debt. Of course, he was dismissed ; but he had been a 
very useful man to me. I never had any further diffi- 
culty in the matter. 

But my chief work was the investigating of com- 
plaints made by the public as to postal matters. The 
practice of the office was and is to send one of its serv- 
ants to the spot to see the complainant and to inquire 
into the facts, when the complainant is sufficiently ener- 
getic or sufficiently big to make himself well heard. A 
great expense is often incurred for a very small object; 
but the system works well on the whole, as confidence 
is engendered, and a feeling is produced in the country 
that the department has eyes of its own and does keep 
them open. This employment was very pleasant, and 
to me always easy, as it required at its close no more 
than the writing of 3 report. There were no accounts 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 57 

in this business, no keeping of books, no necessary ma- 
nipulation of multitudinous forms. I must tell of one 
such complaint and inquiry, because in its result I think 
it was emblematic of many. 

A gentleman in county Cavan had complained most 
bitterly of the injury done to him by some arrangement 
of the Post Office. The nature of his grievance has no 
present significance; but it was so unendurable that he 
had written many letters, couched in the strongest lan- 
guage. He was most irate, and indulged himself in 
that scorn which is easy to an angry mind. The place 
was not in my district, but I was borrowed, being young 
and strong, that I might remember the edge of his per- 
sonal wrath. It was mid-winter, and I drove up to his 
house, a squire's country seat, in the middle of a snow- 
storm, just as it was becoming dark. I was on an open 
jaunting car, and was on my way from one little town 
to another, the cause of his complaint having reference 
to some mail conveyance between the two. I was cer- 
tainly very cold, and very wet, and very uncomfortable 
when I entered his house. I was admitted by a butler, 
but the gentleman himself hurried into the hall. I at 
once began to explain my business. "God bless me !" 
he said, " you are wet through. John, get Mr. Trollope 
some brandy and water — very hot." I was beginning 
my story about the post again when he himself took off 
my greatcoat, and suggested that I should go up to my 
bedroom before I troubled myself with business. "Bed- 
room !" I exclaimed. Then he assured me that he would 
not turn a dog out on such a night as that, and into a 
bedroom I was shown, having first drank the brandy 
and water standing at the drawing-room fire. When I 
came down I was introduced to his daughter, and the 
three of us went in to dinner. I shall never forget his 



58 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

righteous indignation when I again brought up the 
postal question on the departure of the young lady. Was 
I such a Goth as to contaminate wine with business? 
So I drank my wine, and then heard the young lady 
sing while her father slept in his armchair. I spent a 
very pleasant evening, but my host was too sleepy to 
hear anything about the Post Office that night. It was 
absolutely necessary that I should go away the next 
morning after breakfast, and I explained that the mat- 
ter must be discussed then. He shook his head and 
wrung his hands in unmistakable disgust, — almost in 
despair. "But what am I to say in my report ?" I asked. 
"Anything you please," he said. "Don't spare me, if 
you want an excuse for yourself. Here I sit all the 
day — with nothing to do ; and I like writing letters." I 

did report that Mr. was now quite satisfied with 

the postal arrangement of his district; and I felt a soft 
regret that I should have robbed my friend of his occu- 
pation. Perhaps he was able to take up the Poor Law 
Board, or to attack the Excise. At the Post Office 
nothing more was heard from him. 

I went on with the hunting surveyor at Banagher for 
three years, during which, at Kingstown, the watering 
place near Dublin, I met Rose Heseltine, the lady who 
has since become my wife. The engagement took place 
when I had been just one year in Ireland ; but there was 
still a delay of two years before we could be married. 
She had no fortune, nor had I any income beyond that 
which came from the Post Office ; and there were still a 
few debts, which would have been paid off no doubt 
sooner, but for that purchase of the horse. When I 
had been nearly three years in Ireland we were mar- 
ried on the nth of June, 1844; — and, perhaps, I ought 
to name that happy day as the commencement of my 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 59 

better life, rather than the day on which I first landed 
in Ireland. 

For though during these three years I had been jolly 
enough, I had not been altogether happy. The hunting, 
the whisky punch, the rattling Irish life, — of which I 
could write a volume of stories were this the place to 
tell them, — were continually driving from my mind the 
still cherished determination to become a writer of 
novels. When I reached Ireland I had never put pen 
to paper; nor had I done so when I became engaged. 
And when I was married, being then twenty-nine, I 
had only written the first volume of my first work. This 
constant putting off of the day of work was a great sor- 
row to me. I certainly had not been idle in my new 
berth. I had learned my work, so that every one con- 
cerned knew that it was safe in my hands; and I held 
a position altogether the reverse of that in which I was 
always trembling while I remained in London. But 
that did not suffice, — did not nearly suffice. I still felt 
that there might be a career before me, if I could only 
bring myself to begin the work. I do not think I 
much doubted my own intellectual sufficiency for the 
writing of a readable novel. What I did doubt was my 
own industry, and the chances of the market. 

The vigour necessary to prosecute two professions 
at the same time is not given to every one, and it was 
only lately that I had found the vigour necessary for 
one. There must be early hours, and I had not as yet 
learned to love early hours. I was still, indeed, a 
young man; but hardly young enough to trust myself 
to find the power to alter the habits of my life. And I 
had heard of the difficulties of publishing, — a subject of 
which I shall have to say much should I ever bring this 
memoir to a close. I had dealt already with publishers 



6o AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

on my mother's behalf, and knew that many a tyro who 
could fill a manuscript lacked the power to put his mat- 
ter before the public; — and I knew, too, that when the 
matter was printed, how little had then been done 
towards the winning of the battle ! I had already 
learned that many a book — many a good book — 

" is born to blush unseen 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'* 

But still the purpose was strong within me, and the 
first effort was made after the following fashion. I 
was located at a little town called Drumsna, or rather 
village, in the county Leitrim, where the postmaster 
had come to some sorrow about his money; and my 
friend John Merivale was staying with me for a day 
or two. As we were taking a walk^in that most unin- 
teresting country, we turned up through a deserted 
gateway, along a weedy, grass-grown avenue, till we 
came to the modern ruins of a country house. It was 
one of the most melancholy spots I ever visited. I will 
not describe it here, because I have done so in the first 
chapter of my first novel. We wandered about the 
place, suggesting to each other causes for the misery 
we saw there, and, while I was still among the ruined 
walls and decayed beams, I fabricated the plot of The 
Macdermots of Ballycloran. As to the plot itself, I do 
not know that I ever made one so good, — or, at any rate, 
one so susceptible of pathos. I am aware that I broke 
down in the telling, not having yet studied the art. 
Nevertheless, The Macdermots is a good novel, and 
worth reading by any one who wishes to understand 
what Irish life was before the potato disease, the 
famine, and the Encumbered Estates Bill. 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 6l 

When my friend left me, I set to work and wrote 
the first chapter or two. Up to this time I had con- 
tinued that practice of castle-building of which I have 
spoken ; but now the castle I built was among the ruins 
of that old house. The book, however, hung with me. 
It was only now and then that I found either time or 
energy- for a few pages. I commenced the book in 
September, 1843, and had only written a volume when 
I was married in June, 1844. 

My marriage was like the marriage of other people, 
and of no special interest to any one except my wife 
and me. It took place at Rotherham, in Yorkshire, 
where her father was the manager of a bank. We were 
not very rich, having about £400 a year on which to 
live. 

Many people would say that we were two fools 
to encounter such poverty together. I can only reply 
that since that day I have never been without money 
in my pocket, and that I soon acquired the means of 
paying what I owed. Nevertheless, more than twelve 
years had to pass over our heads before I received any 
payment for any literary work which afforded an appre- 
ciable increase to our income. 

Immediately after our marriage, I left the west of 
Ireland and the hunting surveyor, and joined another 
in the south. It was a better district, and I was enabled 
to live at Clonmel, a town of some importance, instead 
of at Banagher, which is little more than a village. I 
had not felt myself to be comfortable in my old resi- 
dence as a married man. On my arrival there as a 
bachelor I had been received most kindly, but when I 
brought my English wife I fancied that there was a 
feeling that I had behaved badly to Ireland generally. 
When a young man has been received hospitably in an 



62 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Irish circle, I will not say that it is expected of him 
that he should marry some young lady in that society; 
— but it certainly is expected of him that he shall not 
marry any young lady out of it. I had given offence, 
and I was made to feel it. 

There has taken place a great change in Ireland 
since the days in which I lived at Banagher, and a 
change so much for the better, that I have sometimes 
wondered at the obduracy with which people have 
spoken of the permanent ill condition of the country. 
Wages are now nearly double what they were then. 
The Post Office, at any rate, is paying almost double 
for its rural labour, — 9s. a week when it used to pay 5s., 
and I2s. a week when it used to pay 7s. Banks 
have sprung up in almost every village. Rents 
are paid with more than English punctuality. And the 
religious enmity between the classes, though it is not 
yet dead, is dying out. Soon after I reached Banagher 
in 1841, I dined one evening with a Roman Catholic. 
I was informed next day by a Protestant gentleman 
who had been very hospitable to me that I must choose 
my party. I could not sit both at Protestant and Cath- 
olic tables. Such a caution would now be impossible 
in any part of Ireland. Home-rule, no doubt, is a 
nuisance, — and especially a nuisance because the pro- 
fessors of the doctrine do not at all believe it them- 
selves. There are probably no other twenty men in 
England or Ireland who would be so utterly dum- 
founded and prostrated were Home-rule to have its 
way as the twenty Irish members who profess to sup- 
port it in the House of Commons. But it is not to be 
expected that nuisances such as these should be abol- 
ished at a blow. Home-rule is, at any rate, better and 
more easily managed than the rebellion at the close of 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 6^ 

the last century; it is better than the treachery of the 
Union ; less troublesome than O'Connell's monster meet- 
ings ; less dangerous than Smith O'Brien and the battle 
of the cabbage-garden at Ballingary, and very much 
less bloody than Fenianism. The descent from O'Con- 
nell to Mr. Butt has been the natural declension of a 
political disease, which we had no right to hope would 
be cured by any one remedy. 

When I had been married a year my first novel was 
finished. In July, 1845, I took it with me to the north 
of England, and intrusted the MS. to my mother to do 
with it the best she could among the publishers in Lon- 
don. No one had read it but my wife; nor, as far as I 
am aware, has any other friend of mine ever read a 
word of my writing before it was printed. She, I think, 
has so read almost everything, to my very great advan- 
tage in matters of taste. I am sure I have never asked a 
friend to read a line; nor have I ever read a word of 
my own writing aloud, — even to her. With one excep- 
tion, — which shall be mentioned as I come to it, — I have 
never consulted a friend as to a plot, or spoken to any 
one of the work I have been doing. My first manuscript 
I gave up to my mother, agreeing with her that it would 
be as well that she should not look at it before she gave 
it to a publisher. I knew that she did not give me credit 
for the sort of cleverness necessary for such work. I 
could see in the faces and hear in the voices of those 
of my friends who were around me at the house in 
Cumberland, — my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law, 
and, I think, my brother, — that they had not expected 
me to come out as one of the family authors. There 
were three or four in the field before me, and it seemed 
to be almost absurd that another should wish to add 
himself to the number. My father had written 



64 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

much, — those long ecclesiastical descriptions, — quite 
unsuccessfully. My mother had become one of the 
popular authors of the day. My brother had com- 
menced, and had been fairly well paid for his work. My 
sister, Mrs. Tilley, had also written a novel, which was 
at the time in manuscript — which was published after- 
wards without her name, and was called Chollerton. 
I could perceive that this attempt of mine was felt 
to be an unfortunate aggravation of the disease. 

My mother, however, did the best she could for me, 
and soon reported that Mr. Newby, of Mortimer 
Street, was to publish the book. It was to be printed 
at his expense, and he was to give me half the 
profits. Half the profits ! Many a young author ex- 
pects much from such an undertaking. I can, with 
truth, declare that I expected nothing. And I got 
nothing. Nor did I expect fame, or even acknowl- 
edgment. I was sure that the book would fail, 
and it did fail most absolutely. I never heard of a 
person reading it in those days. If there was any 
notice taken of it by any critic of the day, I did not see 
it. I never asked any questions about it, or wrote a 
single letter on the subject to the publisher. I have 
Mr. Newby's agreement with me, in duplicate, and one 
or two preliminary notes; but beyond that I did not 
have a word from Mr. Newby. I am sure that he did 
not wrong me in that he paid me nothing. It is prob- 
able that he did not sell fifty copies of the work; — but 
of what he did sell he gave me no account. 

I do not remember that I felt in any way disappointed 
or hurt. I am quite sure that no word of complaint 
passed my lips. I think I may say that after the publi- 
cation I never said a word about the book, even to my 
wife. The fact that I had written and published it, and 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 65 

that I was writing another, did not in the least inter- 
fere with my Hfe, or with my determination to make 
the best I could of the Post Office. In Ireland, I think 
that no one knew that I had written a novel. But I 
went on writing. The Macdermots was published in 
1847, and The Kelly s and the 0' Kelly s followed in 1848. 
I changed my publisher, but did not change my fortune. 
This second Irish story was sent into the world by Mr. 
Colburn, who had long been my mother's publisher, who 
reigned in Great Marlborough Street, and I believe 
created the business which is now carried on by Messrs. 
Hurst & Blackett. He had previously been in partner- 
ship with Mr. Bentley in New Burlington Street. I 
made the same agreement as before as to half profits, 
and with precisely the same results. The book was not 
only not read, but was never heard of, — at any rate, in 
Ireland. And yet it is a good Irish story, much inferior 
to The Macdermots as to plot, but superior in the mode 
of telling. Again I held my tongue, and not only said 
nothing but felt nothing. Any success would, I think, 
have carried me off my legs, but I was altogether pre- 
pared for failure. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the 
writing of these books, I did not imagine, when the 
time came for publishing them, that any one would 
condescend to read them. 

But in reference to The O'Kellys there arose a cir- 
cumstance which set my mind to work on a subject 
which has exercised it much ever since. I made my 
first acquaintance with criticism. A dear friend of mine 
to whom the book had been sent, — as have all my 
books, — wrote me word to Ireland that he had been 
dining at some club with a man high in authority 
among the gods of the Times newspaper, and that this 
special god had almost promised that The O'Kellys 



66 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

should be noticed in that most influential of "organs." 
The information moved me very much; but it set me 
thinking whether the notice, should it ever appear, 
would not have been more valuable, at any rate, more 
honest, if it had been produced by other means ; — if, for 
instance, the writer of the notice had been instigated 
by the merits or demerits of the book instead of by the 
friendship of a friend. And I made up my mind then 
that, should I continue this trade of authorship, I 
would have no dealings with any critic on my own be- 
half. I would neither ask for nor deplore criticism, 
nor would I ever thank a critic for praise, or quarrel 
with him, even in my own heart, for censure. To this 
rule I have adhered with absolute strictness, and this 
rule I would recommend to all young authors. What 
can be got by touting among the critics is never worth 
the ignominy. The same may, of course, be said of all 
things acquired by ignominious means. But in this 
matter it is so easy to fall into the dirt. Facilis de- 
scensus Averni. There seems to be but little fault in 
suggesting to a friend that a few words in this or that 
journal would be of service. But any praise so ob- 
tained must be an injustice to the public, for whose 
instruction, and not for the sustentation of the author, 
such notices are intended. And from such mild sugges- 
tion the descent to crawling at the critic's feet, to the 
sending of presents, and at last to a mutual understand- 
ing between critics and criticised, is only too easy. 
Other evils follow, for the denouncing of which this 
is hardly the place; — though I trust I may find such 
place before my work is finished. I took no notice of 
my friend's letter, but I was not the less careful in 
watching The Times. At last the review came, — a real 
review in The Times. I learned it by heart, and can 



MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 6/ 

now give, if not the words, the exact purport. "Of 
The Kellys and the O'Kellys we may say what the 
master said to his footman, when the man complained 
of the constant supply of legs of mutton on the kitchen 
table. ' Well, John, legs of mutton are good, substan- 
tial food;' and we may say also what John replied: 
* Substantial, sir, — yes, they are substantial, but a little 
coarse.' " That was the review, and even that did not 
sell the book ! 

From Mr. Colburn I did receive an account, showing 
that 375 copies of the book had been printed, that 140 
had been sold, — to those, I presume, who liked substan- 
tial food though it was coarse, — and that he had in- 
curred a loss of £63 I OS. iM. The truth of the account 
I never for a moment doubted; nor did I doubt the 
wisdom of the advice given to me in the following 
letter, though I never thought of obeying it — 

" Great Marlborough Street, 
November 11, 1848. 

" My Dear Sir, — I am sorry to say that absence from 
town and other circumstances have prevented me from 
earlier inquiring into the results of the sale of The 
Kellys and the O'Kellys, with which the greatest efforts 
have been used, but in vain. The sale has been, I regret 
to say, so small that the loss upon the publication is 
very considerable; and it appears clear to me that, 
although in consequence of the great number of novels 
that are published, the sale of each, with some few ex- 
ceptions, must be small, yet it is evident that readers do 
not like novels on Irish subjects as well as on others. 
Thus, you will perceive, it is impossible for me to give 
any encouragement to you to proceed in novel-writing. 

"As, however, I understand you have nearly finished 



68 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the novel La Vendee, perhaps you will favour me with 
a sight of it when convenient. — I remain, etc., etc., 

*'H. COLBURN." 

This, though not strictly logical, was a rational letter, 
telling a plain truth plainly. I did not like the assur- 
ance that *' the greatest efforts had been used," think- 
ing that any efforts which might be made for the popu- 
larity of a book ought to have come from the author ; — 
but I took in good part Mr. Colburn's assurance that he 
could not encourage me in the career I had commenced. 
I would have bet twenty to one against my own suc- 
cess. But by continuing I could lose only pen and 
paper; and if the one chance in twenty did turn up in 
my favour, then how much might I winl 



CHAPTER V 

MY FIRST SUCCESS 
1849-1855 

I HAD at once gone to work on a third novel, and had 
nearly completed it, when I was informed of the abso- 
lute failure of the former. I find, however, that the 
agreement for its publication was not made till 1850, by 
which time I imagine that Mr. Colburn must have 
forgotten the disastrous result of The O'Kellys, as he 
thereby agrees to give me £20 down for my "new his- 
torical novel, to be called La Vendee." He agreed also 
to pay me £30 more when he had sold 350 copies, and 
£50 more should he sell 450 within six months. I got 
my £20, and then heard no more of La Vendee, not 
even receiving any account. Perhaps the historical 
title had appeared more alluring to him than an Irish 
subject; though it was not long afterwards that I re- 
ceived a warning from the very same house of business 
against historical novels, — as I will tell at length when 
the proper time comes. 

I have no doubt that the result of the sale of this 
story was no better than that of the two that had gone 
before. I asked no quesions, however, and to this day 
have received no information. The story is certainly 
inferior to those which had gone before; — chiefly be- 
cause I knew accurately the life of the people in Ire- 
land, and knew, in truth, nothing of life in the La 
Vendee country, and also because the facts of the 

69 



70 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

present time came more within the limits of my powers 
of story-telling than those of past years. But I read 
the book the other day, and am not ashamed of it. The 
conception as to the feeling of the people is, I think, 
true; the characters are distinct, and the tale is not 
dull. As far as I can remember, this morsel of criticism 
is the only one that was ever written on the book. 

I had, however^ received £20. Alas ! alas ! years were 
to roll by before I should earn by my pen another shil- 
ling. And, indeed, I was well aware that I had not 
earned that; but that the money had been "talked out 
of" the worthy publisher by the earnestness of my 
brother, who made the bargain for me. I have known 
very much of publishers and have been surprised by 
much in their mode of business, — by the apparent lav- 
ishness and by the apparent hardness to authors in the 
same men, — but by nothing so much as by the ease 
with which they can occasionally be persuaded to throw 
away small sums of money. If you will only make the 
payment future instead of present, you may generally 
twist a few pounds in your own or your client's favour. 
"You might as well promise her £20. This day six 
months will do very well." The publisher, though he 
knows that the money will never come back to him, 
thinks it worth his while to rid himself of your impor- 
tunity at so cheap a price. 

But while I was writing La Vendee I made a literary 
attempt in another direction. In 1847 and 1848 there 
had come upon Ireland the desolation and destruction, 
first of the famine, and then of the pestilence which 
succeeded the famine. It was my duty at that time to 
be travelling constantly in those parts of Ireland in 
vv^iich the misery and troubles thence arising were, per- 
haps, at their worst. The western parts of Cork, Kerry, 



MY FIRST SUCCESS 7I 

and Clare were pre-eminently unfortunate. The 
efforts, — I may say, the successful efforts, — made by 
the Government to stay the hands of death will still be 
in the remembrance of many: — how Sir Robert Peel 
was instigated to repeal the Corn Laws ; and how, sub- 
sequently. Lord John Russell took measures for employ- 
ing the people, and supplying the country with Indian 
corn. The expediency of these latter measures was 
questioned by many. The people themselves wished, 
of course, to be fed without working; and the gentry, 
who were mainly responsible for the rates, were dis- 
posed to think that the management of affairs was taken 
too much out of their own hands. My mind at the 
time was busy with the matter, and, thinking that the 
Government was right, I was inclined to defend them 
as far as my small powers went. S. G. O. (Lord 
Sydney Godolphin Osborne) was at that time denounc- 
ing the Irish scheme of the Administration in the 
Times, using very strong language, — as those who re- 
member his style will know. I fancied then, — as I 
still think, — that I understood the country much better 
than he did; and I was anxious to show that the steps 
taken for mitigating the terrible evil of the times were 
the best which the Minister of the day could have 
adopted. In 1848 I was in London, and, full of my pur- 
pose, I presented myself to Mr. John Forster, — who 
has since been an intimate and valued friend, — but 
who was at that time the editor of the Examiner. I 
think that that portion of the literary world which 
understands the fabrication of newspapers will admit 
that neither before his time, nor since, has there been a 
more capable editor of a weekly newspaper. As a liter- 
ary man, he was not without his faults. That which 
the cabman is reported to have said of him before the 



*J2 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

magistrate is quite true. He was always " an arbi- 
trary cove." As a critic, he belonged to the school of 
Bentley and Gifford, — who would always bray in a 
literary mortar all critics who disagreed from them, as 
though such disagreement were a personal offence re- 
quiring personal castigation. But that very eagerness 
made him a good editor. Into whatever he did he put 
his very heart and soul. During his time the Examiner 
was almost all that a Liberal weekly paper should be. 
So to John Forster I went, and was shown into that 
room in Lincoln's Inn Fields in which, some three or 
four years earlier, Dickens had given that reading of 
which there is an illustration with portraits in the 
second volume of his life. 

At this time I knew no literary men. A few I had 
met when living with my mother, but that had been 
now so long ago that all such acquaintance had died 
out. I knew who they were as far as a man could get 
such knowledge from the papers of the day, and felt 
myself as in part belonging to the guild, through my 
mother, and in some degree by my own unsuccessful 
efforts. But it was not probable that any one would 
admit my claim; — nor on this occasion did I make any 
claim. I stated my name and official position, and the 
fact that opportunities had been given me of seeing 
the poorhouses in Ireland, and of making myself ac- 
quainted with the circumstances of the time. Would a 
series of letters on the subject be accepted by the 
Examiner? The great man, who loomed very large to 
me, was pleased to say that if the letters should recom- 
mend themselves by their style and matter, if they were 
not too long, and if, — every reader will know how on 
such occasions an editor will guard himself, — if this 
and if that, they should be favourably entertained. 



21 £ i-xfvoi SUCcESS 73 

They were favourably entertained, — if printing and 
publication be favourable entertainment. But I heard 
no more of them. The world in Ireland did not declare 
that the Government had at last been adequately de- 
fended, nor did the treasurer of the Examiner send me 
a cheque in return. 

Whether there ought to have been a cheque I do not 
even yet know. A man who writes a single letter to 
a newspaper, of course, is not paid for it, — nor for any 
number of letters on some point personal to himself. I 
have since written sets of letters to newspapers, and 
have been paid for them; but then I have bargained 
for a price. On this occasion I had hopes; but they 
never ran high, and I was not much disappointed. I 
have no copy now of those letters, and could not refer 
to them without much trouble; nor do I remember 
what I said. But I know that I did my best in writing 
them. 

When my historical novel failed, as completely as had 
its predecessors, the two Irish novels, I began to ask 
myself whether, after all, that was my proper line. I 
had never thought of questioning the justice of the ver- 
dict expressed against me. The idea that I was the 
unfortunate owner of unappreciated genius never 
troubled me. I did not look at the books after they 
were published, feeling sure that they had been, as it 
were, damned with good reason. But still I was clear 
in my mind that I would not lay down my pen. Then 
and therefore I determined to change my hand, and to 
attempt a play. I did attempt the play, and in 1850 I 
wrote a comedy, partly in blank verse, and partly in 
prose, called The Noble Jilt. The plot I afterwards 
used in a novel called Can You Forgive Her? I be- 
lieve that I did give the best of my intellect to the 



74 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

play, and I must own that when it was completed it 
pleased me much. I copied it, and re-copied it, touch- 
ing it here and touching it there, and then sent it to 
my very old friend, George Bartley, the actor, who had 
when I was in London been stage-manager of one of 
the great theatres, and who would, I thought, for my 
own sake and for my mother's, give me the full benefit 
of his professional experience. 

I have now before me the letter which he wrote to 
me, — a letter which I have read a score of times. It 
was altogether condemnatory. " When I commenced," 
he said, "I had great hopes of your production. I did 
not think it opened dramatically, but that might have 
been remedied." I knew then that it war all over. But, 
as my old friend warmed to the subject, the criticism 
became stronger and stronger, till my ears tingled. At 
last came the fatal blow. "As to the character of your 
heroine, I felt at a loss how to describe it, but you have 
done it for me in the last speech of Madame Brudo." 
Madame Brudo was the heroine's aunt. " * Margaret, 
my child, never play the jilt again; 'tis a most unbecom- 
ing character. Play it with what skill you will, it 
meets but little sympathy.' And this, be assured, would 
be its effect upon an audience. So that I must reluctantly 
add that, had I been still a manager, The Noble Jilt is 
not a play I could have recommended for production." 
This was a blow that I did feel. The neglect of a book 
is a disagreeable fact which grows upon an author by 
degrees. There is no special moment^ of agony, — no 
stunning violence of condemnation. But a piece of 
criticism such as this, from a friend, and from a man 
undoubtedly capable of forming an opinion, was a blow 
in the face ! But I accepted the judgment loyally, and 
said not a word on the subject to any one. I merely 



MY FIRST SUCCESS 75 

showed the letter to my wife, declaring my conviction, 
that it must be taken as gospel. And as critical gospel 
it has since been accepted. In later days I have more 
than once read the play, and I know that he was right. 
The dialogue, however, I think to be good, and I doubt 
whether some of the scenes be not the brightest and 
best work I ever did. 

Just at this time another literary project loomed 
before my eyes, and for six or eight months had con- 
siderable size. I was introduced to Mr. John Murray, 
and proposed to him to write a handbook for Ireland. 
I explained to him that I knew the country better than 
most other people, perhaps better than any other per- 
son, and could do it well. He asked me to make a 
trial of my skill, and to send him a certain number 
of pages, undertaking to give me an answer within 
a fortnight after he should have received my work. 
I came back to Ireland, and for some weeks I laboured 
very hard. I " did " the city of Dublin, and the county 
of Kerry, in which lies the lake scenery of Killarney; 
and I " did " the route from Dublin to Killarney, 
altogether completing nearly a quarter of the pro- 
posed volume. The roll of MS. was sent to Albe- 
marle Street, — but was never opened. At the expira- 
tion of nine months from the date on which it reached 
that time-honoured spot it was returned without a 
word, in answer to a very angry letter from myself. 
I insisted on having back my property, — and got it. 
I need hardly say that my property has never been 
of the slightest use to me. In all honesty I think 
that had he been less dilatory, John Murray would 
have got a very good Irish Guide at a cheap rate. 

Early in 185 1 I was sent upon a job of special 
official work, which for two years so completely 



76 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

absorbed my time that I was able to write nothing. 
A plan was formed for extending the rural delivery 
of letters, and for adjusting the work, which up to 
that time had been done in a very irregular manner. 
A country letter-carrier would be sent in one direction 
in which there were but few letters to be delivered, the 
arrangement having originated probably at the request 
of some influential person, while in another direction 
there was no letter-carrier because no influential per- 
son had exerted himself. It was intended to set this 
right throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland; and 
I quickly did the work in the Irish district to which I 
was attached. I was then invited to do the same in 
a portion of England, and I spent two of the happiest 
years of my life at the task. I began in Devonshire; 
and visited, I think I may say, every nook in that 
county, in Cornwall, Somersetshire, the greater part 
of Dorsetshire, the Channel Islands, part of Oxford- 
shire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Here- 
fordshire, Monmouthshire, and the six southern Welsh 
counties. In this way I had an opportunity of seeing 
a considerable portion of Great Britain, with a minute- 
ness which few have enjoyed. And I did my busi- 
ness after a fashion in which no other official man 
has worked at least for many years. I went almost 
everywhere on horseback. I had two hunters of my 
own, and here and there, where I could, I hired a 
third horse. I had an Irish groom with me, — an old 
man, who has now been in my service for thirty-five 
years; and in this manner I saw almost every house 
— I think I may say every house of importance — ■ 
in this large district. The object was to create a 
postal network which should catch all recipients of 
letters. In France it was, and I suppose still is, the 



MY FIRST SUCCESS TJ 

practice to deliver every letter. Wherever the man 
may live to whom a letter is addressed, it is the duty 
of some letter-carrier to take that letter to his house, 
sooner or later. But this, of course, must be done 
slowly. With us a delivery much delayed was thought 
to be worse than none at all. In some places we did 
establish posts three times a week, and perhaps occa- 
sionally twice a week; but such halting arrangements 
were considered to be objectionable, and we were 
bound down by a salutary law as to expense, which 
came from our masters at the Treasury. We were 
not allowed to establish any messenger's walk on which 
a sufficient number of letters would not be delivered 
to pay the man's wages, counted at a halfpenny a letter. 
But then the counting was in our own hands, and 
an enterprising official might be sanguine in his figures. 
I think I was sanguine. I did not prepare false 
accounts; but I fear that the postmasters and clerks 
who absolutely had the country to do became aware 
that I was anxious for good results. It is amusing 
to watch how a passion will grow upon a man. During 
those two years it was the ambition of my life to 
cover the country with rural letter-carriers. I do not 
remember that in any case a rural post proposed by 
me was negatived by the authorities; but I fear that 
some of them broke down afterwards as being too 
poor, or because, in my anxiety to include this house 
and that, I had sent the men too far afield. Our law 
was that a man should not be required to walk more 
than sixteen miles a day. Had the work to be done 
been all on a measured road, there would have been 
no need for doubt as to the distances. But my letter- 
carriers went here and there across the fields. It was 
my special delight to take them by all short cuts; 



yS AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and as I measured on horsebaclc the short cuts which 
they would have to make on foot, perhaps I was 
sometimes a little unjust to them. 

All this I did on horseback, riding on an average 
forty miles a day. I was paid sixpence a mile for the 
distance travelled, and it was necessary that I should 
at any rate travel enough to pay for my equipage. 
This I did, and got my hunting out of it also. I have 
often surprised some small country postmaster, who had 
never seen or heard of me before, by coming down 
upon him at nine in the morning, with a red coat and 
boots and breeches, and interrogating him as to the 
disposal of every letter which came into his office. 
And in the same guise I would ride up to farm- 
houses, or parsonages, or other lone residences about 
the country, and ask the people how they got their 
letters, at what hour, and especially whether they were 
delivered free or at a certain charge. For a habit had 
crept into use, which came to be, in my eyes, at that 
time, the one sin for which there was no pardon, in 
accordance with which these rural letter-carriers used 
to charge a penny a letter, alleging that the house 
was out of their beat, and that they must be paid for 
their extra work. I think that I did stamp out that 
evil. In all these visits I was, in truth, a beneficent 
angel to the public, bringing everywhere with me an 
earlier, cheaper, and much more regular delivery of 
letters. But not unfrequently the angelic nature of 
my mission was imperfectly understood. I was perhaps 
a little in a hurry to get on, and did not allow as 
much time as was necessary to explain to the wonder- 
ing mistress of the house, or to an open-mouthed 
farmer, why it was that a man arrayed for hunting 
asked so many questions which might be considered 



MY FIRST SUCCESS 79 

impertinent, as applying to his or her private affairs. 
" Good-morning, sir. I have just called to ask a few 
questions. I am a surveyor of the Post Office. How 
do you get your letters? As I am a little in a hurry, 
perhaps you can explain at once." Then I would take 
out my pencil and notebook, and wait for information. 
And in fact there was no other way in which the 
truth could be ascertained. Unless I came down sud- 
denly as a summer's storm upon them, the very people 
who were robbed by our messengers would not confess 
the robbery, fearing the ill-will of the men. It was 
necessary to startle them into the revelations which I 
required them to make for their own good. And I 
did startle them. I became thoroughly used to it, and 
soon lost my native bashfulness; — but sometimes my 
visits astonished the retiring inhabitants of country 
houses. I did, however, do my work, and can look 
back upon what I did with thorough satisfaction. I 
was altogether in earnest; and I believe that many 
a farmer now has his letters brought daily to his house 
free of charge, who but for me would still have had 
to send to the post-town for them twice a week, or to 
have paid a man for bringing them irregularly to his 
door. 

This work took up my time so completely, and 
entailed upon me so great an amount of writing, that 
I was in fact unable to do any literary work. From 
day to day I thought of it, still purporting to make 
another effort, and often turning over in my head 
some fragment of a plot which had occurred to me. 
But the day did not come in which I could sit down 
with my pen and paper and begin another novel. For, 
after all, what could it be but a novel? The play had 
failed more absolutely than the novels, for the novels 



80 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had attained the honour of print. The cause of this 
pressure of official work lay, not in the demands of 
the General Post Office, which more than once 
expressed itself as astonished by my celerity, but in the 
necessity which was incumbent on me to travel miles 
enough to pay for my horses, and upon the amount of 
correspondence, returns, figures, and reports which 
such an amount of daily travelling brought with it. I 
may boast that the work was done very quickly and 
very thoroughly, — with no fault but an over-eagerness 
to extend postal arrangements far and wide. 

In the course of the job I visited Salisbury, and 
whilst wandering there one mid-summer evening round 
the purlieus of the cathedral I conceived the story of 
The Warden, — from whence came that series of 
novels of which Barchester, with its bishops, deans, 
and archdeacon, was the central site. I may as well 
declare at once that no one at their commencement 
could have had less reason than myself to presume 
himself to be able to write about clergymen. I have 
been often asked in what period of my early life I 
had lived so long in a cathedral city as to have become 
intimate with the ways of a Close. I never lived in 
any cathedral city, — except London, never knew any- 
thing of any Close, and at that time had enjoyed no 
peculiar intimacy with any clergyman. My archdeacon, 
who has been said to be life-like, and for whom I 
confess that I have all a parent's fond affection, was, 
I think, the simple result of an effort of my moral 
consciousness. It was such as that, in my opinion, 
that an archdeacon should be, — or, at any rate, would 
be with such advantages as an archdeacon might have; 
and lo ! an archdeacon was produced, who has been 
declared by competent authorities to be a real arch- 



MY FIRST SUCCESS 8l 

deacon down to the very ground. And yet, as far as 
I can remember, I had not then even spoken to an 
archdeacon. I have felt the compliment to be very 
great. The archdeacon came whole from my brain 
after this fashion; — but in writing about clergymen 
generally, I had to pick up as I went whatever I 
might know or pretend to know about them. But my 
first idea had no reference to clergymen in general. 
I had been struck by two opposite evils, — or what 
seemed to me to be evils, — and with an absence of all 
art- judgment in such matters, I thought that I might 
be able to expose them, or rather to describe them, 
both in one and the same tale. The first evil was 
the possession by the Church of certain funds and 
endowments which had been intended for charitable 
purposes, but which had been allowed to become 
incomes for idle Church dignitaries. There had been 
more than one such case brought to public notice at 
the time, in which there seemed to have been an 
egregious malversation of charitable purposes. The 
second evil was its very opposite. Though I had been 
much struck by the injustice above described, I had 
also often been angered by the undeserved severity 
of the newspapers towards the recipients of such 
incomes, who could hardly be considered to be the 
chief sinners in the matter. When a man is appointed 
to a place, it is natural that he should accept the 
income allotted to that place without much inquiry. 
It is seldom that he will be the first to find out that 
his services are overpaid. Though he be called upon 
only to look beautiful and to be dignified upon State 
occasions, he will think £2000 a year little enough for 
such beauty and dignity as he brings to the task. I 
felt that there had been some tearing to pieces which 



82 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

might have been spared. But I was altogether wrong 
in supposing that the two things could be combined. 
Any writer in advocating a cause must do so after 
the fashion of an advocate, — or his writing will be 
ineffective. He should take up one side and cling 
to that, and then he may be powerful. There should 
be no scruples of conscience. Such scruples make a 
man impotent for such work. It was open to me to 
have described a bloated parson, with a red nose and 
all other iniquities, openly neglecting every duty 
required from him, and living riotously on funds pur- 
loined from the poor, — defying as he did do so the 
moderate remonstrances of a virtuous press. Or I 
might have painted a man as good, as sweet, and as 
mild as my warden, who should also have been a hard- 
working, ill-paid minister of God's word, and might 
have subjected him to the rancorous venom of some 
daily Jupiter, who, without a leg to stand on, without 
any true case, might have been induced, by personal 
spite, to tear to rags the poor clergyman with poison- 
ous, anonymous, and ferocious leading articles. But 
neither of these programmes recommended itself^' to 
my honesty. Satire, though it may exaggerate the 
vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order 
that it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily 
become a slander, and satire a libel. I believed in 
the existence neither of the red-nosed clerical cor- 
morant, nor in that of the venomous assassin of the 
journals. I did believe that through want of care and 
the natural tendency of every class to take care of 
itself, money had slipped into the pockets of certain 
clergymen which should have gone elsewhere; and I 
believed also that through the equally natural pro- 
pensity of men to be as strong as they know how to 



MY FIRST SUCCESS 83 

be, certain writers of the press had allowed themselves 
to use language which was cruel, though it was in a 
good cause. But the two objects should not have 
been combined — and I now know myself well enough 
to be aware that I was not the man to have carried 
out either of them. 

Nevertheless I thought much about it, and on the 
29th of July, 1853, — having been then two years with- 
out having made any literary effort, — I began The 
Warden, at Tenbury in Worcestershire. It was then 
more than twelve months since I had stood for an hour 
on the little bridge in Salisbury, and had made out 
to my own satisfaction the spot on which Hiram's 
hospital should stand. Certainly no work that I ever 
did took up so much of my thoughts. On this occasion 
I did no more than write the first chapter, even if 
so much. I had determined that my official work 
should be moderated, so as to allow me some time for 
writing; but then, just at this time, I was sent to 
take the postal charge of the northern counties in 
Ireland, — of Ulster, and the counties Meath and Louth. 
Hitherto in official language I had been a surveyor's 
clerk, — now I was to be a surveyor. The difference 
consisted mainly in an increase of income from about 
£450 to about £800; — for at that time the sum netted 
still depended on the number of miles travelled. Of 
course that English work to which I had become so 
warmly wedded had to be abandoned. Other parts of 
England were being done by other men, and I had 
nearly finished the area which had been entrusted to 
me. I should have liked to ride over the whole country, 
and to have sent a rural post letter-carrier to every 
parish, every village, every hamlet, and every grange 
in England. 



84 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

We were at this time very much unsettled as regards 
any residence. While we were living at Clonmel two 
sons had been born, who certainly were important 
enough to have been mentioned sooner. At Clonmel 
we had lived in lodgings, and from there had moved 
to Mallow, a town in the county Cork, where we had 
taken a house. Mallow was in the centre of a hunting 
country, and had been very pleasant to me. But our 
house there had been given up when it was known 
that I should be detained in England; and then we 
had wandered about in the western counties, moving our 
headquarters from one town to another. During this 
time we had lived at Exeter, at Bristol, at Caermarthen, 
at Cheltenham, and at Worcester. Now we again 
moved, and settled ourselves for eighteen months at 
Belfast. After that we took a house at Donnybrook, 
the well-known suburb of Dublin. 

The work of taking up a new district, which requires 
not only that the man doing it should know the nature 
of the postal arrangements, but also the characters and 
the peculiarities of the postmasters and their clerks, 
was too heavy to allow of my going on with my book 
at once. It was not till the end of 1852 that I recom- 
menced it, and it was in the autum of 1853 that I 
finished the work. It was only one small volume, and 
in later days would have been completed in six weeks, 
— or in two months at the longest, if other work had 
pressed. On looking at the title-page, I find it was 
not published till 1855. I had made acquaintance, 
through my friend John Merivale, with William Long- 
man the publisher, and had received from him an 
assurance that the manuscript should be " looked at." 
It was " looked at," and Messrs. Longman made me 
an offer to publish it at half profits. I had no reason 



MY FIRST SUCCESS 85 

to love " half profits," but I was very anxious to have 
my book published, and I acceded. It was now more 
than ten years since I had commenced writing The 
Macdermots, and I thought that if any success was to 
be achieved, the time surely had come. I had not been 
impatient; but, if there was to be a time, surely it 
had come. 

The novel-reading world did not go mad about The 
Warden; but I soon felt that it had not failed as the 
others had failed. There were notices of it in the press, 
and I could discover that people around me knew that 
I had written a book. Mr. Longman was compli- 
mentary, and after a while informed me that there 
would be profits to divide. At the end of 1855 I 
received a cheque for £9 8s. 8d., which was the first 
money I had ever earned by literary work; — that £20 
which poor Mr. Colburn had been made to pay certainly 
never having been earned at all. At the end of 1856 
I received another sum of £10 15s. id. The pecu- 
niary success was not great. Indeed, as regarded 
remuneration for the time, stone-breaking would have 
done better. A thousand copies were printed, of which, 
after a lapse of five or six years, about 300 had to b«. 
converted into another form, and sold as belonging 
to a cheap edition. In its original form The Warden 
never reached the essential honour of a second edition. 

I have already said of the work that it failed alto- 
gether in the purport for which it was intended. But 
it has a merit of its own, — a merit by my own per- 
ception of which I was enabled to see wherein lay 
whatever strength I did possess. The characters of 
the bishop, of the archdeacon, of the archdeacon's 
wife, and especially of the warden, are all well and 
clearly drawn. I had realised to myself a series of 



86 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

portraits, and had been able so to put them on the canvas 
that my readers should see that which I meant them 
to see. There is no gift which an author can have 
more useful to him than this. And the style of the 
English was good, though from most unpardonable 
carelessness the grammar was not unfrequently faulty. 
With such results I had no doubt but that I would at 
once begin another novel. 

I will here say one word as a long-deferred answer 
to an item of criticism which appeared in the Times 
newspaper as to The Warden. In an article — if I 
remember rightly — on The Warden and Barchester 
Towers combined — which I would call good-natured, 
but that I take it for granted that the critics of the 
Times are actuated by higher motives than good- 
nature, that little book and its sequel are spoken of in 
terms which were very pleasant to the author. But 
there was added to this a gentle word of rebuke at 
the morbid condition of the author's mind which had 
prompted him to indulge in personalities, — the person- 
alities in question having reference to some editor 
or manager of the Times newspaper. For I had intro- 
duced one Tom Towers as being potent among the 
contributors to the Jupiter, under which name I cer- 
tainly did allude to the Times. But at that time, living 
away in Ireland, I had not even heard the name of 
any gentleman connected with the Times newspaper, 
and could not have intended to represent any individual 
by Tom Towers. As I had created an archdeacon, 
so had I created a journalist, and the one creation was 
no more personal or indicative of morbid tendencies 
than the other. If Tom Towers was at all like any 
gentleman connected with the Times, my moral con- 
sciousness must again have been very powerful. 



CHAPTER VI 



1855-1858 

It was, I think, before I started on my English tours 
among the rural posts that I made my first attempt at 
writing for a magazine. I had read, soon after they 
came out, the two first volumes of Charles Meri- 
vale's History of the Romans under the Empire, and 
had got into some correspondence with the author's 
brother as to the author's views about Caesar. Hence 
arose in my mind a tendency to investigate the char- 
acter of probably the greatest man who ever lived, 
which tendency in after years produced a little book 
of which I shall have to speak when its time comes, 
— and also a taste generally for Latin literature, which 
has been one of the chief delights of my later life. 
And I may say that I became at this time as anxious 
about Caesar, and as desirous of reaching the truth 
as to his character, as we have all been in regard to 
Bismarck in these latter days. I lived in Caesar, and 
debated with myself constantly whether he crossed 
the Rubicon as a tyrant or as a patriot. In order that 
I might review Mr. Merivale's book without feeling 
that I was dealing unwarrantably with a subject 
beyond me, I studied the Commentaries thoroughly, 
and went through a mass of other reading which the 

87 



55 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

object of a magazine article hardly justified, — ^but 
which has thoroughly justified itself in the subsequent 
pursuits of my life. I did write two articles, the first 
mainly on Julius Caesar, and the second on Augustus, 
which appeared in the Dublin University Magazine. 
They were the result of very much labour, but there 
came from them no pecuniary product. I had been 
very modest when I sent them to the editor, as I had 
been when I called on John Forster, not venturing to 
suggest the subject of money. After a while I did call 
upon the proprietor of the magazine in Dublin, and 
was told by him that such articles were generally 
written to oblige friends, and that articles written to 
oblige friends were not usually paid for. The Dean 
of Ely, as the author of the work in question now is, 
was my friend; but I think I was wronged, as I cer- 
tainly had no intention of obliging him by my criticism. 
Afterwards, when I returned to Ireland, I wrote other 
articles for the same magazine, one of which, intended 
to be very savage in its denunciation, was on an official 
blue-book just then brought out, preparatory to the 
introduction of competitive examinations for the Civil 
Service. For that and some other article, I now forget 
what, I was paid. Up to the end of 1857 I had received 
£55 for the hard work of ten years. 

It was while I was engaged on Barchester Towers 
that I adopted a system of writing which, for some 
years afterwards, I found to be very serviceable to me. 
My time was greatly occupied in travelling, and the 
nature of my travelling was now changed. I could 
not any longer do it on horseback. Railroads afforded 
me my means of conveyance, and I found that I passed 
in railway-carriages very many hours of my exist- 
ence. Like others, I used to read, — though Carlyle 



89 

has since told me that a man when travelling should not 
read, but " sit still and label his thoughts." But if I 
intended to make a profitable business out of my 
writing, and, at the same time, to do my best for the 
Post Office, I must turn these hours to more account 
than I could do even by reading. I made for myself 
therefore a little tablet, and found after a few days' 
exercise that I could write as quickly in a railway- 
carriage as I could at my desk. I worked with a pencil, 
and what I wrote my wife copied afterwards. In this 
way was composed the greater part of Barchester 
Towers and of the novel which succeeded it, and 
much also of others subsequent to them. My only 
objection to the practice came from the appearance of 
literary ostentation, to which I felt myself to be sub- 
ject when going to work before four or five fellow- 
passengers. But I got used to it, as I had done to 
the amazement of the west country farmers' wives 
when asking them after their letters. 

In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great 
delight. The bishop and Mrs. Proudie were very real to 
me, as were also the troubles of the archdeacon and the 
loves of Mr. Slope. When it was done, Mr. W. Long- 
man required that it should be subjected to his reader; 
and he returned the MS. to me, with a most laborious and 
voluminous criticism, — coming from whom I never 
knew. This was accompanied by an offer to print the 
novel on the half-profit system, with a payment of f lOO 
in advance out of my half-profits, — on condition that 
I would comply with the suggestions made by his 
critic. One of these suggestions required that I should 
cut the novel down to two volumes. In my reply, 
I went through the criticisms, rejecting one and accept- 
ing another, almost alternately, but declaring at last 



90 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

that no consideration should induce me to cut out a 
third of my work. I am at a loss to know how such 
a task could have been performed. I could burn the 
MS., no doubt, and write another book on the same 
story; but how two words out of six are to be with- 
drawn from a written novel, I cannot conceive. I 
believe such tasks have been attempted — perhaps per- 
formed; but I refused to make even the attempt. Mr. 
Longman was too gracious to insist on his critic's 
terms; and the book was published, certai^ily none the 
worse, and I do not think much the bettee, for the care 
that had been taken with it. 

The work succeeded just as The Warden had suc- 
ceeded. It achieved no great reputation, but it was 
one of the novels which novel readers were called upon 
to read. Perhaps I may be assuming upon myself 
more than I have a right to do in saying now that 
Barchester Towers has become one of those novels 
which do not die quite at once, which live and are 
read for perhaps a quarter of a century; but if that 
be so, its life has been so far prolonged by the vitality 
of some of its younger brothers. Barchester Towers 
would hardly be so well known as it is had there been 
no Framley Parsonage and no Last Chronicle of 
Bar set. 

I received my £ioo, in advance, with profound 
delight. It was a positive and most welcome increase 
to my income, and might probably be regarded as 
a first real step on the road to substantial success. 
I am well aware that there are many who think that 
an author in his authorship should not regard money, 
—nor a painter, or sculptor, or composer in his art. 
I do not know that this unnatural sacrifice is sup- 
posed to extend itself further. A barrister, a clergy- 



91 

mati, a doctor, an engineer, and even actors and archi- 
tects, may without disgrace follow the bent of human 
nature, and endeavour to fill their bellies and clothe 
their backs, and also those of their wives and children, 
as comfortably as they can by the exercise of their 
abilities and their crafts. They may be as rationally 
realistic, as may the butchers and the bakers; but the 
artist and the author forget the high glories of their 
calling if they condescend to make a money return a 
first object. They who preach this doctrine will be 
much offended by my theory, and by this book of 
mine, if my theory and my book come beneath their 
notice. They require the practice of a so-called virtue 
which is contrary to nature, and which, in my eyes, 
would be no virtue if it were practised. They are like 
clergymen who preach sermons against the love of 
money, but who know that the love of money is so 
distinctive a characteristic of humanity that such ser- 
mons are mere platitudes called for by customary but 
unintelligent piety. All material progress has come 
from man's desire to do the best he can for himself 
and those about him, and civilisation and Christianity 
itself have been made possible by such progress. 
Though we do not all of us argue this matter out within 
our breasts, we do all feel it; and we know that the 
more a man earns the more useful he is to his fellow- 
men. The most useful lawyers, as a rule, have been 
those who have made the greatest incomes, — and it 
is the same with the doctors. It would be the same in 
the Church if they who have the choosing of bishops 
always chose the best man. And it has in truth been 
so too in art and authorship. Did Titian or Rxibens 
disregard their pecuniary rewards? As far as we 
know, Shakespeare worked always for money, giving 



92 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the best of his intellect to support his trade as an 
actor. In our own century what literary names stand 
higher than those of Byron, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, 
Macaulay, and Carlyle? And I think I may say that 
none of those great men neglected the pecuniary result 
of their labours. Now and then a man may arise 
among us who in any calling, whether it be in law, in 
physic, in religious teaching, in art, or literature, may 
in his professional enthusiasm utterly disregard money. 
All will honour his enthusiasm, and if he be wifeless 
and childless, his disregard of the great object of men's 
work will be blameless. But it is a mistake to sup> 
pose that a man is a better man because he despises 
money. Few do so, and those few in doing so suffer 
a defeat. Who does not desire to be hospitable to his 
friends, generous to the poor, liberal to all, munificent 
to his children, and to be himself free from the cark- 
ing fear which poverty creates? The subject will not 
stand an argument ; — and yet authors are told that they 
should disregard payment for their work, and be con- 
tent to devote their unbought brains to the welfare of 
the public. Brains that are unbought will never serve 
the public much. Take away from English authors 
their copyrights, and you would very soon take away 
from England her authors. 

I say this here, because it is my purpose as I go 
on to state what to me has been the result of my pro- 
fession in the ordinary way in which professions are 
regarded, so that by my example may be seen what 
prospect there is that a man devoting himself to 
literature with industry, perseverance, certain neces- 
sary aptitudes, and fair average talents, may succeed 
in gaining a livelihood, as another man does in another 
profession. The result with me has been comfortable 



93 

but not splendid, as I think was to have been expected 
from the combination of such gifts. 

I have certainly always had also before my eyes 
the charms of reputation. Over and above the money 
view of the question, I wished from the beginning to 
be something more than a clerk in the Post Office. To 
be known as somebody, — to be Anthony Trollope if it 
be no more, — is to me much. The feeling is a very 
general one, and I think beneficent. It is that which 
has been called the " last infirmity of noble mind." 
The infirmity is so human that the man who lacks it 
is either above or below humanity. I own to the 
infirmity. But I confess that my first object in taking 
to literature as a profession was that which is common 
to the barrister when he goes to the Bar, and to the 
baker when he sets up his oven. I wished to make an 
income on which I and those belonging to me might 
live in comfort. 

If indeed a man writes his books badly, or paints 
his pictures badly, because he can make his money 
faster in that fashion than by doing them well, and at 
the same time proclaims them to be the best he can 
do, — if in fact he sells shoddy for broadcloth, — he is 
dishonest, as is any other fraudulent dealer. So may 
be the barrister who takes money that he does not 
earn, or the clergyman who is content to live on 
a sinecure. No doubt the artist or the author may 
have a difficulty which will not occur to the seller of 
cloth, in settling within himself what is good work and 
what is bad, — when labour enough has been given, and 
when the task has been scamped. It is a danger as 
to which he is bound to be severe with himself — in 
which he should feel that his conscience should be 
set fairly in the balance against the natural bias of his 



94 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

interest. If he do not do so, sooner or later his dis- 
honesty will be discovered, and will be estimated 
accordingly. But in this he is to be governed only by 
the plain rules of honesty which should govern us 
all. Having said so much, I shall not scruple as I 
go on to attribute to the pecuniary result of my labours 
all the importance which I felt them to have at the 
timco 

Barchester Towers, for which I had received fioo 
in advance, sold well enough to bring me further 
payments — moderate payments — from the publishers. 
From that day up to this very time in which I am 
writing, that book and The Warden together have 
given me almost every year some small income. I 
get the accounts very regularly, and I find that I have 
received £727 lis. 3d. for the two. It is more than 
I got for the three or four works that came afterwards, 
but the payments have been spread over twenty years. 

When I went to Mr. Longman with my next novel. 
The Three Clerks, in my hand, I could not induce him 
to understand that a lump sum down was more pleasant 
than a deferred annuity. I wished him to buy it from 
me at a price which he might think to be a fair value, 
and I argued with him that as soon as an author 
has put himself into a position which insures a suffi- 
cient sale of his works to give a profit, the publisher is 
not entitled to expect the half of such proceeds. While 
there is a pecuniary risk, the whole of which must be 
borne by the publisher, such division is fair enough; 
but such a demand on the part of the publisher is 
monstrous as soon as the article produced is known to 
be a marketable commodity. I thought that I had now j 
reached that point, but Mr. Longman did not agree j 
with me. And he endeavoured to convince me that 



" BARCHESTER TOWERS 95 

I might lose more than I gained, even though I 
should get more money by going elsewhere. " It is 
for you," said he, " to think whether our names on 
your title-page are not worth more to you than the 
increased payment." This seemed to me to savour of 
that high-flown doctrine of the contempt of money 
which I have never admired. I did think much of 
Messrs. Longman's name, but I liked it best at the 
bottom of a cheque. 

I was also scared from the august columns of 
Paternoster Row by a remark made to myself by one 
of the firm, which seemed to imply that they did not 
much care for works of fiction. Speaking of a fertile 
writer of tales who was not then dead, he declared 

that (naming the author in question) had 

spawned upon them (the publishers) three novels a 
year ! Such language is perhaps justifiable in regard 
to a man who shows so much of the fecundity of the 
herring; but I did not know how fruitful might be 
my own muse, and I thought that I had better go 
elsewhere. 

I had then written The Three Clerks, which, when 
I could not sell it to Messrs. Longman, I took in the 
first instance to Messrs. Hurst & Blackett, who had 
become successors to Mr. Colburn. I had made an 
appointment with one of the firm, which, however, 
that gentleman was unable to keep. I was on my way 
from Ireland to Italy, and had but one day in London 
in which to dispose of my manuscript. I sat for an 
hour in Great Marlborough Street, expecting the 
return of the peccant publisher who had broken his 
tryst, and I was about to depart with my bundle under 
my arm when the foreman of the house came to me. 
He seemed to think it a pity that I should go, and 



g6 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

wished me to leave my work with him. This, how- 
ever, I would not do, unless he would undertake to 
buy it then and there. Perhaps he lacked authority. 
Perhaps his judgment was against such purchase^ But 
while we debated the matter, he gave me some advice. 
"I hope it's not historical, Mr. Trollope?" he said. 
" Whatever you do, don't be historical ; your historical 
novel is not worth a damn." Thence I took The 
Three Clerks to Mr. Bentley; and on the same after- 
noon succeeded in selling it to him for £250. His son 
still possesses it, and the firm has, I believe, done very 
well with the purchase. It was certainly the best 
novel I had as yet written. The plot is not so good 
as that of the Macdermots; nor are there any charac- 
ters in the book equal to those of Mrs. Proudie and the 
Warden; but the work has a more continued interest, 
and contains the first well-described love-scene that I 
ever wrote. The passage in which Kate Woodward, 
thinking that she will die, tries to take leave of the 
lad she loves, still brings tears to my eyes when I read 
it. I had not the heart to kill her. I never could do 
that. And I do not doubt but that they are living 
happily together to this day. 

The lawyer Chaffanbrass made his first appearance 
in this novel, and I do not think that I have cause 
to be ashamed of him. But this novel now is chiefly 
noticeable to me from the fact that in it I introduced 
a character under the name of Sir Gregory Hardlines, 
by which I intended to lean very heavily on that much 
loathed scheme of competitive examination, of which 
at that time Sir Charles Trevelyan was the great 
apostle. Sir Gregory Hardlines was intended for Sir 
Charles Trevelyan, — as any one at the time would 
know who had taken an interest in the Civil Service. 



97 

"We always call him Sir Gregory," Lady Trevelyan 
said to me afterwards, when I came to know her and 
her husband. I never learned to love competitive 
examination; but I became, and am, very fond of Sir 
Charles Trevelyan. Sir Stafford Northcote, who is 
now Chancellor of the Exchequer, was then leagued 
with his friend Sir Charles, and he too appears in 
The Three Clerks under the feebly facetious name of 
Sir Warwick West End. 

But for all that The Three Clerks was a good 
novel. 

When that sale was made I was on my way to Italy 
with my wife, paying a third visit there to my mother 
and brother. This was in 1857, and she had then given 
up her pen. It was the first year in which she had 
not written, and she expressed to me her delight that 
her labours should be at an end, and that mine should 
be beginning in the same field. In truth they had 
already been continued for a dozen years, but a man's 
career will generally be held to date itself from the 
commencement of his success. On those foreign tours 
I always encountered adventures, which, as I look 
back upon them now, tempt me almost to write a little 
book of my long past Continental travels. On this 
occasion, as we made our way slowly through Switz- 
erland and over the Alps, we encountered again and 
again a poor forlorn Englishman, who had no friend 
and no aptitude for travelling. He was always losing 
his way, and finding himself with no seat in the coaches 
and no bed at the inns. On one occasion I found him 
at Coire seated at 5 a. m. in the coupe of a diligence 
which was intended to start at noon for the Engadine, 
while it was his purpose to go over the Alps in another 
which was to leave at 5.30, and which was already 



98 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

crowded with passengers. " Ah ! " he said, " I am in 
time now, and nobody shall turn me out of this seat," 
alluding to former little misfortunes of which I had 
been a witness. When I explained to him his position, 
he was as one to whom life was too bitter to be borne. 
But he made his way into Italy, and encountered me 
again at the Pitti Palace in Florence. " Can you tell 
me something?" he said to me in a whisper, having 
touched my shoulder. " The people are so ill-natured 
I don't like to ask them. Where is it they keep the 
Medical Venus ? " I sent him to the Uffizzi, but I 
fear he was disappointed. 

We ourselves, however, on entering Milan had been 
in quite as much distress as any that he suffered. We 
had not written for beds, and on driving up to a hotel 
at ten in the evening found it full. Thence we went 
from one hotel to another, finding them all full. The 
misery is one well known to travellers, but I never 
heard of another case in which a man and his wife 
were told at midnight to get out of the conveyance 
into the middle of the street because the horse could 
not be made to go any further. Such was our con- 
dition. I induced the driver, however, to go again to 
the hotel which was nearest to him, and which was 
kept by a German. Then I bribed the porter to get 
the master to come down to me; and, though my 
French is ordinarily very defective, I spoke with 
such eloquence to that German innkeeper that he, 
throwing his arms round my neck in a transport of 
compassion, swore that he would never leave me nor 
my wife till he had put us to bed. And he did so; but, 
ah ! there were so many in those beds ! It is such an 
experience as this which teaches a travelling foreigner 
how different on the Continent is the accommodation 



"the three clerks'* 99 

provided for him, from that which is suppHed for the 
inhabitants of the country. 

It was on a previous visit to Milan, when the 
telegraph-wires were only just opened to the public 
by the Austrian authorities, that we had decided one 
day at dinner that we would go to Verona that night. 
There was a train at six, reaching Verona at mid- 
night, and we asked some servant of the hotel to tele- 
graph for us, ordering supper and beds. The demand 
seemed to create some surprise; but we persisted, and 
were only mildly grieved when we found ourselves 
charged twenty zwanzigers for the message. Teleg- 
raphy was new at Milan, and the prices were intended 
to be almost prohibitory. We paid our twenty 
zwanzigers and went on, consoling ourselves with the 
thought of our ready supper and our assured beds. 
When we reached Verona, there arose a great cry 
along the platform for Signor Trollope. I put out 
my head and declared my identity, when I was waited 
upon by a glorious personage dressed like a beau for 
a ball, with half-a-dozen others almost as glorious 
behind him, who informed me, with his hat in his 
hand, that he was the landlord of the "Due Torre." 
It was a heating moment, but it became more hot when 
he asked after my people, — " mes gens." I could only 
turn round, and point to my wife and brother-in-law. 
I had no other " people." There were three carriages 
provided for us, each with a pair of grey horses. When 
we reached the house it was all lit up. We were not 
allowed to move without an attendant with a lighted 
candle. It was only gradually that the mistake came 
to be understood. On us there was still the horror 
of the bill, the extent of which could not be known 
till the hour of departure had come. The land- 



lOO AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

lord, however, had acknowledged to himself that his 
inductions had been ill-founded, and he treated us 
with clemency. He had never before received a 
telegram. 

I apologise for these tales, which are certainly out- 
side my purpose, and will endeavour to tell no more 
that shall not have a closer relation to my story. I 
had finished The Three Clerks just before I left Eng- 
land, and when in Florence was cudgelling my brain 
for a new plot. Being then with my brother, I asked 
him to sketch me a plot, and he drew out that of my 
next novel, called Doctor Thome. I mention this 
particularly, because it was the only occasion in which 
I have had recourse to some other source than my 
own brains for the thread of a story. How far I may 
unconsciously have adopted incidents from what I 
have read, — either from history or from works of 
imagination, — I do not know. It is beyond question 
that a man employed as I have been must do so. But 
when doing it I have not been aware that I have 
done it. I have never taken another man's work, and 
deliberately framed my work upon it. I am far from 
censuring this practice in others. Our greatest masters 
in works of imagination have obtained such aid for 
themselves. Shakespeare dug out of such quarries 
whenever he could find them. Ben Jonson, with 
heavier hand, built up his structures on his studies of 
the classics, not thinking it beneath him to give, with- 
out direct acknowledgment, whole pieces translated 
both from poets and historians. But in those days 
no such acknowledgment was usual. Plagiary ex- 
isted, and was very common, but was not known as 
a sin. It is different now; and I think that an au- 
thor, when he uses either the words or the plot 



lOI 

of another, should own as miv:h, demanding to be 
credited with no more of the work than he has him- 
self produced. I may say also that I have never 
printed as my own a word that has been written by 
others. 1 It might probably have been better for my 
readers had I done so, as I am informed that Doctor 
Thome, the novel of which I am now speaking, has 
a larger sale than any other book of mine. 

Early in 1858, while I was writing Doctor Thorne^ 
I was asked by the great men at the General Post Office 
to go to Egypt to make a treaty with the Pasha for 
the conveyance of our mails through that country by 
railway. There was a treaty in existence, but that 
had reference to the carriage of bags and boxes by 
camels from Alexandria to Suez. Since its date the 
railway had grown, and was now nea«'jy completed, 
and a new treaty was wanted. So I ctcme over from 
Dublin to London, on my road, and again went to work 
among the publishers. The other novel was not finished ; 
but I thought I had now progressed far enough to 
arrange a sale while the work was still on the stocks. 
I went to Mr. Bentley and demanded £400, — for the 
copyright. He acceded, but came to me the next 
morning at the General Post Office to say that it 
could not be. He had gone to work at his figures after 
I had left him, and had found that £300 would be the 
outside value of the novel. I was intent upon the 
larger sum; and in furious haste, — for I had but an 
hour at my disposal, — I rushed to Chapman & Hall in 

^ I must make one exception to this declaration. The 
legal opinion as to heirlooms in The Eustace Diamonds was 
written for me by Charles Merewether, the present Mem- 
ber for Northampton. I am told that it has become the 
ruling authority on the subject. 



102 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Piccadilly, and said what I had to say to Mr. Edward 
Chapman in a quick torrent of words. They were 
the first of a great many words which have since 
been spoken by me in that back-shop. Looking at 
me as he might have done at a highway robber who 
had stopped him on Hcunslow Heath, he said that he 
supposed he might as well do as I desired. I con- 
sidered this to be a sale, and it was a sale. I remember 
that he held the poker in his hand all the time that I 
was with him; — but in truth, even though he had 
declined to buy the book, there would have been no 
danger. 



CHAPTER VII 

" DOCTOR THORNE " — " THE BERTRAMS 

INDIES '' AND " THE SPANISH MAIN '* 

As I journeyed across France to Marseilles, and made 
thence a terribly rough voyage to Alexandria, I wrote 
my allotted number of pages every day. On this occa- 
sion more than once I left my paper on the cabin 
table, rushing away to be sick in the privacy of my 
state room. It was February, and the weather was 
miserable; but still I did my work. Labor omnia 
vincit improhus. I do not say that to all men has been 
given physical strength sufficient for such exertion 
as this, but I do believe that real exertion will enable 
most men to work at almost any season. I had pre- 
viously to this arranged a system of task-work for 
myself, which I would strongly recommend to those 
who feel as I have felt, that labour, when not made 
absolutely obligatory by the circumstances of the hour, 
should never be allowed to become spasmodic. There 
was no day on which it was my positive duty to write 
for the publishers, as it was my duty to write reports 
for the Post Office. I was free to be idle if I pleased. 
But as I had made up my mind to undertake this second 
profession, I found it to be expedient to bind myself 
by certain self-imposed laws. When I have commenced 
a new book, I have always prepared a diary, divided 
into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I 
103 



104 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

have allowed myself for the completion of the work. 
In this I have entered, day by day, the number of 
pages I have written, so that if at any time I 
have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record 
of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, 
and demanding of me increased labour, so that the 
deficiency might be supplied. According to the cir- 
cumstances of the time, — whether my other business 
might be then heavy or light, or whether the book 
v\^hich I was writing was or was not wanted with speed, 
--I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The 
average number has been about 40. It has been placed 
as low as 20, and has risen to 112. And as a page is 
an ambiguous term, my page has been made to con- 
tain 250 words; and as words, if not watched, will 
have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word 
counted as I went. In the bargains I have made with 
publishers I have, — not, of course, with their knowl- 
edge, but in my own mind, — undertaken always to 
supply them with so many words, and I have never 
put a book out of hand short of the number by a single 
word. I may also say that the excess has been very 
small. I have prided myself on completing my work 
exactly within the proposed dimensions. But I have 
prided myself especially in completing it within the 
proposed time, — and I have always done so. There has 
ever been the record before me, and a week passed 
with an insufficient number of pages has been a blister 
to my eye, and a month so disgraced would have been 
a sorrow to my heart. 

I have been told that such appliances are beneath 
the notice of a man of genius. I have never fancied 
myself to be a man of genius, but had I been so I 
think I might well have subjected myself to these 



105 

trammels. Nothing surely is so potent as a law that 
may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water- 
drop that hollows the stone. A small daily task, if 
it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic 
Hercules. It is the tortoise which always catches the 
hare. The hare has no chance. He loses more time 
in glorifying himself for a quick spurt than suffices 
for the tortoise to make half his journey. 

I have known authors whose lives have always been 
troublesome and painful because their tasks have 
never been done in time. They have ever been as 
boys struggling to learn their lessons as they entered 
the school gates. Publishers have distrusted them, and 
they have failed to write their best because they have 
seldom written at ease. I have done double their work, 
— though burdened with another profession, — and have 
done it almost without an effort. I have not once, 
through all my literary career, felt myself even in 
danger of being late with my task. I have known 
no anxiety as to " copy." The needed pages far ahead 
— very far ahead — have almost always been in the 
drawer beside me. And that little diary, with its 
dates and ruled spaces, its record that must be seen, 
its daily, weekly demand upon my industry, has done 
all that for me. 

There are those who would be ashamed to subject 
themselves to such a taskmaster, and who think that 
the man who works with his imagination should allow 
himself to wait till — inspiration moves him. When 
I have heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly 
been able to repress my scorn. To me it would not 
be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for 
inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine 
moment of melting. If the man whose business it is 



I06 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to write has eaten too many good things, or has drunk 
too much, or smoked too many cigars, — as men who 
write sometimes will do, — then his condition may be 
unfavourable for work; but so will be the condition of 
a shoemaker who has been similarly imprudent. I 
have sometimes thought that the inspiration wanted 
has been the remedy which time will give to the evil 
results of such imprudence. — Mens sana in corpore 
sano. The author wants that as does every other 
workman, — that and a habit of industry. I was once 
told that the surest aid to the writing of a book was a 
piece of cobbler's wax on my chair. I certainly believe 
in the cobbler's wax much more than the inspiration. 

It will be said, perhaps, that a man whose work has 
risen to no higher pitch than mine has attained, has no 
right to speak of the strains and impulses to which 
real genius is exposed. I am ready to admit the great 
variations in brain power which are exhibited by the 
products of different men, and am not disposed to 
rank my own very high; but my own experience tells 
me that a man can always do the work for which his 
brain is fitted if he will give himself the habit of 
regarding his work as a normal condition of his life. 
I therefore venture to advise young men who look 
forward to authorship as the business of their lives, 
even when they propose that that authorship be of 
the highest class known, to avoid enthusiastic rushes 
with their pens, and to seat themselves at their desks 
day by day as though they were lawyers' clerks; — 
and so let them sit until the allotted task shall be 
accomplished. 

While I was in Egypt, I finished Doctor Thome, 
and on the following day began The Bertrams. I was 
moved now by a determination to excel, if not in 



107 

quality, at any rate in quantity. An ignoble ambition 
for an author, my readers will no doubt say. But not, 
I think, altogether ignoble, if an author can bring 
himself to look at his work as does any other workman. 
This had become my task, this was the furrow in 
which my plough was set, this was the thing the doing 
of which had fallen into my hands, and I was minded 
to work at it with a will. It is not on my conscience 
that I have ever scamped my work. My novels, 
whether good or bad, have been as good as I could 
make them. Had I taken three months of idleness 
between each they would have been no better. Feeling 
convinced of that, I finished Doctor Thome on one 
day, and began The Bertrams on the next. 

I had then been nearly two months in Egypt, and 
had at last succeeded in settling the terms of a postal 
treaty. Nearly twenty years have passed since that 
time, and other years may yet run on before these 
pages are printed. I trust I may commit no official 
%m by describing here the nature of the difficulty which 
met me. I found, on my arrival, that I was to com- 
municate with an officer of the Pasha, who was then 
called Nubar Bey. I presume him to have been the 
gentleman who has lately dealt with our Government 
as to the Suez Canal shares, and who is now well 
known to the political world as Nubar Pasha. I found 
him a most courteous gentlemen, an Armenian. I 
never went to his office, nor do I know that he had an 
office. Every other day he would come to me at my 
hotel, and bring with him servants, and pipes, and 
coffee. I enjoyed his coming greatly; but there was 
one point on which we could not agree. As to money 
and other details, it seemed as though he could hardly 
accede fast enough to the wishes of the Postmaster- 



I08 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

General; but on one point he was firmly opposed to 
me. I was desirous that the mails should be carried 
through Egypt in twenty-four hours, and he thought 
that forty-eight hours should be allowed. I was 
obstinate, and he was obstinate; and for a long time 
we could come to no agreement. At last his oriental 
tranquillity seemed to desert him, and he took upon 
himself to assure me, with almost more than British 
energy, that, if I insisted on the quick transit, a terrible 
responsibility would rest on my head. I made this 
mistake, he said, — that I supposed that a rate of trav- 
elling which would be easy and secure in England 
could be attained with safety in Egypt. " The Pasha, 
his master, would," he said, " no doubt accede to any 
terms demanded by the British Post Office, so great 
was his reverence for everything British. In that case 
he, Nubar, would at once resign his position, and 
retire into obscurity. He would be ruined; but the 
loss of life and bloodshed which would certainly follow 
so rash an attempt should not be on his head." I 
smoked my pipe, or rather his, and drank his coffee, 
with oriental quiescence but British firmness. Every 
now and again, through three or four visits, I 
renewed the expression of my opinion that the transit 
could easily be made in twenty-four hours. At last he 
gave way, — and astonished me by the cordiality of his 
greeting. There was no longer any question of blood- 
shed or of resignation of office, and he assured me, 
with energetic complaisance, that it should be his care 
to see that the time was punctually kept. It was 
punctually kept, and, I believe, is so still. I must con- 
fess, however, that my persistency was not the result 
of any courage specially personal to myself. While 
the matter was being debated, it had been whispered 



109 

to me that the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship 
Company had conceived that forty-eight hours would 
suit the purposes of their traffic better than twenty- 
four, and that, as they were the great paymasters on 
the railway, the Minister of the Egyptian State, who 
managed the railway, might probably wish to accom- 
modate them. I often wondered who originated that 
frightful picture of blood and desolation. That it came 
from an English heart and an English hand I was 
always sure. 

From Egypt I visited the Holy Land, and on my 
way inspected the Post Offices at Malta and Gibraltar. 
I could fill a volume with true tales of my adventures. 
The Tales of All Countries have, most of them, some 
foundation in such occurrences. There is one called 
John Bull on the Guadalquivir, the chief incident in 
which occurred to me and a friend of mine on our 
way up that river to Seville. We both of us handled 
the gold ornaments of a man whom we believed to be 
a bull-fighter, but who turned out to be a duke, — and 
a duke, too, who could speak English ! How gracious 
he was to us, and yet how thoroughly he covered us 
with ridicule ! 

On my return home I received £400 from Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall for Doctor Thome, and agreed to sell 
them The Bertrams for the same sum. This latter 
novel was written under very vagrant circumstances, 
— at Alexandria, Malta, Gibraltar, Glasgow, then at 
sea, and at last finished in Jamaica. Of my journey 
to the West Indies I will say a few words presently, 
but I may as well speak of these two novels here. 
Doctor Thome has, I believe, been the most popular 
book that I have written, — if I may take the sale as 
a proof of comparative popularity. The Bertrams has 



no AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had quite an opposite fortune. I do not know that \ 
have ever heard it well spoken of even by my friends, 
and I cannot remember that there is any character 
in it that has dwelt in the minds of novel-readers. I 
myself think that they are of about equal merit, but 
that neither of them is good. They fall away very 
much from The Three Clerks^ both in pathos and 
humour. There is no personage in either of them 
comparable to Chaffanbrass the lawyer. The plot 
of Doctor Thome is good, and I am led therefore 
to suppose that a good plot, — which, to my own feeling, 
is the most insignificant part of a tale, — is that which 
will most raise it or most condemn it in the public 
judgment. The plots of Tom Jones and of Ivanhoe 
are almost perfect, and they are probably the most 
popular novels of the schools of the last and of this 
century; but to me the delicacy of Amelia, and the 
rugged strength of Burley and Meg Merrilies, say 
more for the power of those great novelists than the 
gift of construction shown in the two works I have 
named. A novel should give a picture of common life 
enlivened by humour and sweetened by pathos. To 
make that picture worthy of attention, the canvas 
should be crowded with real portraits, not of indi- 
viduals known to the world or to the author, but of 
created personages impregnated with traits of char- 
acter which are known. To my thinking, the plot 
is but the vehicle for all this; and when you have 
the vehicle without the passengers, a story of mys- 
tery in which the agents never spring to life, you 
have but a wooden show. There must, however, be a 
story. You must provide a vehicle of some sort. That 
of The Bertrams was more than ordinarily bad ; and as 
the book was relieved by no special character, it failed. 



THE BERTRAMS III 

Its failure never surprised me; but I have been sur- 
prised by the success of Doctor Thome. 

At this time there was nothing in the success of the 
one or the failure of the other to affect me very greatly. 
The immediate sale, and the notices elicited from the 
critics, and the feeling which had now come to me of 
a confident standing with the publishers, all made me 
know that I had achieved my object. If I wrote a 
novel, I could certainly sell it. And if I could publish 
three in two years, — confining myself to half the 
fecundity of that terrible author of whom the publisher 
in Paternoster Row had complained to me, — I might 
add £600 a year to my official income. I was still living 
in Ireland, and could keep a good house over my head, 
insure my life, educate my two boys, and hunt perhaps 
twice a week, on £1400 a year. If more should come, 
it would be well ; — but £600 a year I was prepared to 
reckon as success. It had been slow in coming, but was 
very pleasant when it came. 

On my return from. Egypt I was sent down to 
Scotland to revise the Glasgow Post Office. I almost 
forget now what it was that I had to do there, but 
I know that I walked all over the city with the letter- 
carriers, going up to the top flats of the houses, as the 
men would have declared me incompetent to judge the 
extent of their labours had I not trudged every step 
with them. It was midsummer, and wearier work I 
never performed. The men would grumble, and then 
I would think how it would be with them if they had to 
go home afterwards and write a love-scene. But the 
love-scenes written in Glasgow, all belonging to The 
Bertrams, are not good. 

Then in the autumn of that year, 1858, I was asked 
to go to the West Indies, and cleanse the Augean 



112 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Stables of our Post Office system there. Up to that 
time, and at that time, our Colonial Post Offices gen- 
erally were managed from home, and were subject to 
the British Postmaster-General. Gentlemen were sent 
out from England to be postmasters, surveyors, and 
what not; and as our West Indian islands have never 
been regarded as being of themselves happily situated 
for residence, the gentlemen so sent were sometimes 
more conspicuous for want of income than for offi- 
cial zeal and ability. Hence the stables had become 
Augean. I was also instructed to carry out in some 
of the islands a plan for giving up this postal authority 
to the island Governor, and in others to propose 
some such plan. I was then to go on to Cuba, to make 
a postal treaty with the Spanish authorities, and to 
Panama for the same purpose with the Government 
of New Grenada. All this work I performed to my 
satisfaction, and I hope to that of my masters in St. 
Martin's le Grand. 

But the trip is at the present moment of importance 
to my subject, as having enabled me to write that 
which, on the whole, I regard as the best book that 
has come from my pen. It is short, and, I think I 
may venture to say, amusing, useful, and true. As 
soon as I had learned from the secretary at the General 
Post Office that this journey would be required, I 
proposed the book to Messrs. Chapman & Hall, demand- 
ing £250 for a single volume. The contract was 
made without any difficulty, and when I returned home 
the work was complete in my desk. I began it on board 
the ship in which I left Kingston, Jamaica, for Cuba, 
— and from week to week I carried it on as I went. 
From Cuba I made my way to St. Thomas, and through 
the island down to Demerara, then back to St. Thomas, 



THE BERTRAMS II3 

— which IS the starting-point for all places in that part 
of the globe, — to Santa Martha, Carthagena, Aspin- 
wall, over the Isthmus to Panama, up the Pacific 
to a little harbour on the coast of Costa Rica, thence 
across Central America, through Costa Rica, and 
down the Nicaragua river to the Mosquito coast, and 
after that home by Bermuda and New York. Should 
any one want further details of the voyage, are they 
not written in my book? The fact memorable to me 
now is that I never made a single note while writing 
or preparing it. Preparation, indeed, there was none. 
The descriptions and opinions came hot on to the paper 
from their causes. I will not say that this is the best 
way of writing a book intended to give accurate infor- 
mation. But it is the best way of producing to the 
eye of the reader, and to his ear, that which the eye 
of the writer has seen and his ear heard. There are 
two kinds of confidence which a reader may have in 
his author, — which two kinds the reader who wishes 
to use his reading well should carefully discriminate. 
There is a confidence in facts and a confidence in vision. 
The one man tells you accurately what has been. The 
other suggests to you what may, or perhaps what must 
have been, or what ought to have been. The former 
require simple faith. The latter calls upon you to judge 
for yourself, and form your own conclusions. The 
former does not intend to be prescient, nor the latter 
accurate. Research is the weapon used by the former; 
observation by the latter. Either may be false, — wil- 
fully false; as also may either be steadfastly true. As 
to that, the reader must judge for himself. But the man 
who writes currentc calamo, who works with a rapidity 
which will not admit of accuracy, may be as true, and 
in one sense as trustworthy, as he who bases every 



114 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

word Upon a rock of facts. I have written very much 
as I have travelled about ; and though I have been very- 
inaccurate, I have always written the exact truth as 
I saw it; — and I have, I think, drawn my pictures 
correctly. 

The view I took of the relative position in the 
West Indies of black men and white men was the 
view of the Times newspaper at that period; and there 
appeared three articles in that journal, one closely 
after another, which made the fortune of the book. 
Had it been very bad, I suppose its fortune could not 
have been made for it even by the Times newspaper. 
I afterwards became acquainted with the writer of 
those articles, the contributor himself informing me 
that he had written them. I told him that he had 
done me a greater service than can often be done 
by one man to another, but that I was under no obli- 
gation to him. I do not think that he saw the matter 
quite in the same light. 

I am aware that by that criticism I was much 
raised in my position as an author. Whether such 
lifting up by such means is good or bad for literature 
is a question which I hope to discuss in a future 
chapter. But the result was immediate to me, for I 
at once went to Chapman & Hall and successfully 
demanded £600 for my next novel. 



CHAPTER VIII 

" AND "fRAMLEY 
PARSONAGE "' 

Soon after my return from the West Indies I was 
enabled to change my district in Ireland for one in 
England. For some time past my official work had 
been of a special nature, taking me out of my own 
district; but through all that, Dublin had been my 
home, and there my wife and children had lived. I 
had often sighed to return to England, — with a silly 
longing. My life in England for twenty-six years from 
the time of my birth to the day on which I left it, had 
been wretched. I had been poor, friendless, and joy- 
less. In Ireland it had constantly been happy. I had 
achieved the respect of all with whom I was concerned, 
I had made for myself a comfortable home, and I had 
enjoyed many pleasures. Hunting itself was a great 
delight to me; and now, as I contemplated a move to 
England, and a house in the neighbourhood of London, 
I felt that hunting must be abandoned. i Nevertheless 
I thought that a man who could write books ought 
not to live in Ireland, — ought to live within the reach 
of the publishers, the clubs, and the dinner-parties of 
the metropolis. So I made my request at headquarters, 
and with some little difficulty got myself appointed to 

* It was not abandoned till sixteen more years had passed 
away. 

fT5 



Il6 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the Eastern District of England, — which comprised 
Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon- 
shire, and the greater part of Hertfordshire. 

At this time I did not stand very well with the 
dominant interest at the General Post Office. My old 
friend Colonel Maberly had been, some time since, 
squeezed into, and his place was filled by Mr. Rowland 
Hill, the originator of the penny post. With him 1 
never had any sympathy, nor he with me. In figures 
and facts he was most accurate, but I never came 
across any one who so little understood the ways of 
men, — unless it was his brother Frederic. To the two 
brothers the servants of the Post Office, — men numer- 
ous enough to have formed a large army in old days, — 
were so many machines who could be counted on for 
their exact work without deviation, as wheels may be 
counted on, which are kept going always at the same 
pace and always by the same power. Rowland Hill 
was an industrious public servant, anxious for the 
good of his country; but he was a hard taskmaster, 
and one who would, I think, have put the great depart- 
ment with which he was concerned altogether out of 
gear by his hardness, had he not been at last con- 
trolled. He was the Chief Secretary, my brother-in- 
law — who afterwards succeeded him — came next to 
him, and Mr. Hill's brother was the Junior Secretary. 
In the natural course of things, I had not, from my 
position, anything to do with the management of 
affairs; — but from time to time I found myself more 
or less mixed up in it. I was known to be a thoroughly 
efficient public servant; I am sure I may say so much 
of myself without fear of contradiction from any one 
who has known the Post Office; — I was very fond of 
the department, and when matters came to be con- 



"7 

sidered, I generally had an opinion of my own. I 
have no doubt that I often made myself very disagree- 
able. I know that I sometimes tried to do so. But 
I could hold my own because I knew my business and 
was useful. I had given official offence by the publica- 
tion of The Three Clerks. I afterwards gave greater 
offence by a lecture on The Civil Service which I 
delivered in one of the large rooms at the General 
Post Office to the clerks there. On this occasion, the 
Postmaster-General, with whom personally I enjoyed 
friendly terms, sent for me and told me that Mr. Hill 
had told hfm that I ought to be dismissed. When I 
asked his lorasnip whether he was prepared to dismiss 
me, he only laughed. The threat was no threat to 
me, as I knew myself to be too good to be treated in 
that fashion. The lecture had been permitted, and I 
had disobeyed no order. In the lecture which I deliv- 
ered, there was nothing to bring me to shame, — but it 
advocated the doctrine that a civil servant is only a 
servant as far as his contract goes, and that he is 
beyond that entitled to be as free a man in politics, 
as free in his general pursuits, and as free in opinion, 
as those who are in open professions and open trades. 
All this is very nearly admitted now, but it certainly 
was not admitted then. At that time no one in the 
Post Office could even vote for a Member of 
Parliament. 

Through my whole official life I did my best to 
improve the style of official writing. I have written, 
I should think, some thousands of reports, — many of 
them necessarily very long; some of them dealing with 
subjects so absurd as to allow a touch of burlesque; 
some few in which a spark of indignation or a slight 
glow of pathos might find an entrance. I have taken 



Il8 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

infinite pains with these reports, habituating mysell 
always to write them in the form in which they should 
be sent, — without a copy. It is by writing thus that 
a man can throw on to his paper the exact feeling 
with which his mind is impressed at the moment. A 
rough copy, or that which is called a draft, is written 
in order that it may be touched and altered and put 
upon stilts. The waste of tirr.e, moreover, in such an 
operation, is terrible. If a man knows his craft wi-th 
his pen, he will have learned to write without the 
necessity of changing his words or the form of his 
sentences. I had learned so to write my reports that 
they who read them should know what it was that I 
meant them to understand. But I do not think that 
they were regarded with favour. I have heard horror 
expressed because the old forms were disregarded and 
language used which had no savour of red-tape. 
During the whole of this work in the Post Office it 
was my principle always to obey authority in every- 
thing instantly, but never to allow my mouth to be 
closed as to the expression of my opinion. They who 
had the ordering of me very often did not know the 
work as I knew it, — could not tell as I could what 
would be the effect of this or that change. When 
carrying out instructions which I knew should not have 
been given, I never scrupled to point out the fatuity 
of the improper order in the strongest language that 
I could decently employ. I have revelled in these 
official correspondences, and look back to some of them 
as the greatest delights of my life. But I am not sure 
that they were so delightful to others. 

I succeeded, however, in getting the English district, 
— which could hardly have been refused to me, — and 
prepared to change our residence towards the end oi 



THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE IIQ 

1859. At the time I was writing Castle Richmond, the 
novel which I had sold to Messrs. Chapman & Hall 
for £600. But there arose at this time a certain 
literary project which probably had a great effect upon 
my career. Whilst travelling on postal service abroad, 
or riding over the rural districts in England, or arrang- 
ing the mails in Ireland, — and such for the last 
eighteen years had now been my life, — I had no 
opportunity of becoming acquainted with the literary 
life in London. It was probably some feeling of this 
which had made me anxious to move my penates back 
to England. But even in Ireland, where I was still 
living in October, 1859, I had heard of the Cornhill 
MagasinCy which was to come out on the ist of Jan- 
uary, i860, under the editorship of Thackeray. 

I had at this time written from time to time certain 
short stories, which had been published in different 
periodicals, and which in due time were republished 
under the name of Tales of All Countries. On the 
23d of October, 1859, I wrote to Thackeray, whom I 
had, I think, never then seen, offering to send him for 
the magazine certain of these stories. In reply to this 
I received two letters, — one from Messrs. Smith & 
Elder, the proprietors of the Cornhill, dated 26th of 
October, and the other from the editor, written two 
days later. That from Mr. Thackeray was as 
follows : — 

"S^ Onslow Square, S. W. 

October 2Sth. 

"My Dear Mr. Trollope,— Smith & Elder have 

sent you their proposals; and the business part done, 

let me come to the pleasure,, and say how very glad 

indeed I shall be to have you as a co-operator in our 



120 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

new magazine. And looking over the annexed pro- 
gramme, you will see whether you can't help us in 
many other ways besides tale-telling. Whatever a man 
knows about life and its doings, that let us hear about. 
You must have tossed a good deal about the world, 
and have countless sketches in your memory and 
your portfolio. Please to think if you can furbish 
up any of these besides a novel. When events occur, 
and you have a good lively tale, bear us in mind. 
One of our chief objects in this magazine is the getting 
out of novel spinning, and back into the world. Don't 
understand me to disparage our craft, especially your 
wares. I often say I am like the pastrycook, and 
don't care for tarts, but prefer bread and cheese; but 
the public love the tarts (luckily for us), and we 
must bake and sell them. There was quite an excite- 
ment in my family one evening when Paterfamilias 
(who goes to sleep on a novel almost always when he 
tries it after dinner) came up-stairs into the drawing- 
room wide awake and calling for the second volume 
of The Three Clerks. I hope the Cornhill Magazine 
will have as pleasant a story. And the Chapmans, 
if they are the honest men I take them to be, I've 
no doubt have told you with what sincere liking your 
works have been read by yours very faithfully, 

"W. M. Thackeray/' 

This was very pleasant, and so was the letter from 
Smith & Elder offering me £1000 for the copyright 
of a three-volume novel, to come out in the new 
magazine, — on condition that the first portion of it 
should be in their hands by December 12th. There was 
much in all this that astonished me; — in the first place 
the price, which was more than double what I had 



THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE 121 

yet received, and nearly double that which I was about 
to receive from Messrs. Chapman & Hall. Then there 
was the suddenness of the call. It was already the 
end of October, and a portion of the work was required 
to be in the printer's hands within six weeks. Castle 
Richmond was indeed half written, but that was sold 
to Chapman. And it had already been a principle 
with me in my art, that no part of a novel should be 
published till the entire story was completed. I knew, 
from what I read from month to month, that this 
hurried publication of incompleted work was frequently, 
I might perhaps say always, adopted by the leading 
novelists of the day. That such has been the case, 
is proved by the fact that Dickens, Thackeray, and 
Mrs. Gaskell died with unfinished novels, of which 
portions had been already published. I had not yet 
entered upon the system of publishing novels in parts, 
and therefore had never been tempted. But I was 
aware that an artist should keep in his hand the power 
of fitting the beginning of his work to the end. No 
doubt it is his first duty to fit the end to the beginning, 
and he will endeavour to do so. But he should still 
keep in his hands the power of remedying any defect 
in this respect. 

" Servetur ad imum 
Qualis ab incepto processerit,'* 

should be kept in view as to every character and every 
string of action. Your Achilles should all through, 
from beginning to end, be " impatient, fiery, ruthless, 
keen." Your Achilles, such as he is, will probably 
keep up his character. But your Davus also should 
be always Davus, and that is more difficult. The rustic 



122 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

driving his pigs to market cannot always make them 
travel by the exact path which he has intended for 
them. When some young lady at the end of a story 
cannot be made quite perfect in her conduct, that vivid 
description of angelic purity with which you laid the 
first lines of her portrait should be slightly toned down. 
I had felt that the rushing mode of publication to which 
the system of serial stories had given rise, and by which 
small parts as they were written were sent hot to the 
press, was injurious to the work done. If I now com- 
plied with the proposition made to me, I must act 
against my own principle. But such a principle 
becomes a tyrant if it cannot be superseded on a just 
occasion. If the reason be " tanti," the principle should 
for the occasion be put in abeyance. I sat as judge, 
and decreed that the present reason was " tanti." On 
this my first attempt at a serial story, I thought it fit 
to break my own rule. I can say, however, that I have 
never broken it since. 

But what astonished me most was the fact that 
at so late a day this new Cornhill Magazine should be 
in want of a novel. Perhaps some of my future readers 
will be able to remember the great expectations which 
were raised as to this periodical. Thackeray's was a 
good name with which to conjure. The proprietors, 
Messrs. Smith & Elder, were most liberal in their 
manner of initiating the work, and were able to make 
an expectant world of readers believe that something 
was to be given them for a shilling very much in excess 
of anything they had ever received for that or double 
the money. Whether these hopes were or were not 
fulfilled it is not for me to say, as, for the first few 
years of the magazine's existence, I wrote for it more 
than any other one person. But such was certainly 



THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE I23 

the prospect; — and how had it come to pass that, with 
such promises made, the editor and the proprietors 
were, at the end of October, without anything fixed 
as to what must be regarded as the chief dish in the 
banquet to be provided? 

I fear that the answer to this question must be 
found in the habits of procrastination which had at 
that time grown upon the editor. He had, I imagine, 
undertaken the work himself, and had postponed its 
commencement till there was left to him no time for 
commencing. There was still, it may be said, as much 
time for him as for me. I think there was, — for 
though he had his magazine to look after, I had the 
Post Office. But he thought, when unable to trust 
his own energy, that he might rely upon that of a 
new recruit. He was but four years my senior in life, 
but he was at the top of the tree, while I was still at 
the bottom. 

Having made up my mind to break my principle, 
I started at once from Dublin to London. I arrived 
there on the morning of Thursday, 3d of November, 
and left it on the evening of Friday. In the meantime 
I had made my agreement with Messrs. Smith & 
Elder, and had arranged my plot. But when in Lon- 
don, I first went to Edward Chapman, at 193 Piccadilly. 
If the novel I was then writing for him would suit 
the Cornhill, might I consider my arrangement with 
him to be at an end ? Yes ; I might. But if that story 
would not suit the Cornhill, was I to consider my 
arrangement with him as still standing, — that agree- 
ment requiring that my MS. should be in his hands 
in the following March? As to that, I might do as 
I pleased. In our dealings together Mr. Edward 
Chapman always acceded to every suggestion made 



124 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to him. He never refused a book, and never haggled 
at a price. Then I hurried into the City, and had my 
first interview with Mr. George Smith. When he 
heard that Castle Richmond was an Irish story, he 
begged that I would endeavour to frame some other 
for his magazine. He was sure that an Irish story 
would not do for a commencement; — and he suggested 
the Church, as though it were my peculiar subject. 
I told him that Castle Richmond would have to " come 
out " while any other novel that I might write for him 
would be running through the magazine; — but to that 
he expressed himself altogether indifferent. He wanted 
an English tale, on English life, with a clerical flavour. 
On these orders I went to work, and framed what I 
suppose I must call the plot of Framley Parsonage. 

On my journey back to Ireland, in the railway 
carriage, I wrote the first few pages of that story. 
I had got into my head an idea of what I meant to 
write, — a morsel of the biography of an English clergy- 
man who should not be a bad man, but one led into 
temptation by his own youth and by the unclerical 
accidents of the life of those around him. The love 
of his sister for the young lord was an adjunct 
necessary, because there must be love in a novel. 
And then by placing Framley Parsonage near Bar- 
chester, I was able to fall back upon my old friends 
Mrs. Proudie and the archdeacon. Out of these slight 
elements I fabricated a hodge-podge in which the 
real plot consisted at last simply of a girl refusing 
to marry the man she loved till the man's friends 
agreed to accept her lovingly. Nothing could be less 
efficient or artistic. But the characters were so well 
handled, that the work from the first to the last was 
popular, — and was received as it went on with still 



125 

increasing favour by both editor and proprietor of 
the magazine. The story was thoroughly English. 
There was a little fox-hunting and a little tuft- 
hunting, some Christian virtue and some Christian 
cant. There was no heroism and no villainy. There 
was much Church, but more love-making. And it was 
downright honest love, — in which there was no pre- 
tence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal 
to be fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on 
the part of the man to pay a certain price and no more 
for a pretty toy. Each of them longed for the other, 
and they were not ashamed to say so. Consequently 
they in England who were living, or had lived, the 
same sort of life, liked Franiley .Parsonage. I think my- 
self that Lucy Robarts is perhaps the most natural Eng- 
lish girl that I ever drew, — the most natural, at any 
rate, of those who have been good girls. She was not 
as dear to me as Kate Woodward in The Three Clerks, 
but I think she is more like real human life. Indeed I 
doubt whether such a character could be made more 
lifelike than Lucy Robarts. 

And I will say also that in this novel there is no 
very weak part, — no long succession of dull pages. 
The production of novels in serial form forces upon 
the author the conviction that he should not allow 
himself to be tedious in any single part. I hope no 
reader will misunderstand me. In spite of that con- 
viction, the writer of stories in parts will often be 
tedious. That I have been so myself is a fault that 
will lie heavy on my tombstone. But the writer when 
he embarks in such a business should feel that he can- 
not afford to have many pages skipped out of the few 
which are to meet the reader's eye at the same time. 
Who can imagine the first half of the first volume of 



126 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Waverley coming out in shilling numbers ? I had real- 
ised this when I was writing Framley Parsonage; and 
working on the conviction which had thus come home 
to me, I fell into no bathos of dulness. 

I subsequently came across a piece of criticism 
which was written on me as a novelist by a brother 
novelist very much greater than myself, and whose 
brilliant intellect and warm imagination led him to a 
kind of work the very opposite of mine. This was 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American, whom I did not 
then know, but whose works I knew. Though it praises 
myself highly, I will insert it here, because it certainly 
is true in its nature : " It is odd enough," he says, 
"that my own individual taste is for quite another 
class of works than those which I myself am able to 
write. If I were to meet with such books as mine by 
another writer, I don't believe I should be able to get 
through them. Have you ever read the novels of 
Anthony Trollope? They precisely suit my taste, — 
solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef 
and through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as 
if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth 
and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants 
going about their daily business, and not suspecting 
that they were being made a show of. And these books 
are just as English as a beef-steak. Have they ever 
been tried in America? It needs an English residence 
to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but still I 
should think that human nature would give them suc- 
cess anywhere." 

This was dated early in i860, and could have had no 
reference to Framley Parsonage; but it was as true of 
that work as of any that I have written. And the 
criticism, whether just or unjust, describes with won- 



FRAMLEY PARSONAGE I27 

derful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in 
view in my writing. I have always desired to " hew 
out some lump of the earth," and to make men and 
women walk upon it just as they do walk here among- 
us, — with not more of excellence, nor with exagger- 
ated baseness, — so that my readers might recognise 
human beings like to themselves, and not feel them- 
selves to be carried away among gods or demons. If I 
could do this, then I thought I might succeed in impreg- 
nating the mind of the novel-reader with a feeling that 
honesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while 
falsehood fails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure, 
and sweet, and unselfish; that a man will be honoured 
as he is true, and honest, and brave of heart; that things 
meanly done are ugly and odious, and things nobly 
done beautiful and gracious. I do not say that lessons 
such as these may not be more grandly taught by higher 
flights than mine. Such lessons come to us from our 
greatest poets. But there are so many who will read 
novels and understand them, who either do not read 
the works of our great poets, or reading them miss the 
lesson ! And even in prose fiction the character whom 
the fervid imagination of the writer has lifted some- 
what into the clouds, will hardly give so plain an 
example to the hasty normal reader as the humbler 
personage whom that reader unconsciously feels to 
resemble himself or herself. I do think that a girl 
would more probably dress her own mind after Lucy 
Robarts than after Flora Macdonald. 

There are many who would laugh at the idea of a 
novelist teaching either virtue or nobility, — those, for 
instance, who regard the reading of novels as a sin, 
and those also who think it to be simply an idle pas- 
time. They look upon the tellers of stories as among 



128 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures 
of a wicked world. I have regarded my art from so 
different a point of view that I have ever thought of 
myself as a preacher of sermons, and my pulpit as one 
which I could make both salutary and agreeable to my 
audience. I do believe that no girl has risen from the 
reading of my pages less modest than she was before, 
and that some may have learned from them that modesty 
is a charm well worth preserving. I think that no youth 
has been taught that in falseness and flashness is to be 
found the road to manliness; but some may perhaps 
have learned from me that it is to be found in truth 
and a high but gentle spirit. Such are the lessons I 
have striven to teach; and I have thought it might 
best be done by representing to my readers characters 
like themselves, — or to which they might liken them- 
selves. 

Framley Parsonage — or, rather, my connection with 
the Cornhill — was the means of introducing me very 
quickly to that literary world from which I had hitherto 
been severed by the fact of my residence in Ireland. In 
December, 1859, while I was still very hard at work on 
my novel, I came over to take charge of the Eastern 
District, and settled myself at a residence about twelve 
miles from London, in Hertfordshire, but on the borders 
both of Essex and Middlesex, — which was somewhat 
too grandly called Waltham House. This I took on 
lease, and subsequently bought after I had spent about 
£1000 on improvements. From hence I was able to 
make myself frequent both in Cornhill and Piccadilly, 
and to live, when the opportunity came, among men of 
my own pursuit. 

It was in January, i860, that Mr. George Smith — to 
whose enterprise we owe not only the Cornhill Maga- 



129 

sine but the I^all Mall Gazette — gave a sumptuous 
dinner to his contributors. It was a memorable banquet 
in many ways, but chiefly so to me because on that 
occasion I first met many men who afterwards became 
my most intimate associates. It can rarely happen that 
one such occasion can be the first starting-point of so 
many friendships. It was at that table, and on that 
day, that I first saw Thackeray, Charles Taylor (Sir) — 
than whom in latter life I have loved no man better, — 
Robert Bell, G. H. Lewes, and John Everett Millais. 
With all these men I afterwards lived on affectionate 
terms; — but I will here speak specially of the last, 
because from that time he was joined with me in so 
much of the work that I did. 

Mr. Millais was engaged to illustrate Framley Par- 
sonage, but this was not the first work he did for the 
magazine. In the second number there is a picture of his 
accompanying Monckton Milne's Unspoken Dialogue. 
The first drawing he did for Framley Parsonage did 
not appear till after the dinner of which I have spoken, 
and I do not think that I knew at the time that he was 
engaged on my novel. When I did know it, it made me 
very proud. He afterwards illustrated Orley Farm, 
The Small House of Allington, Rachel Ray, and Phineas 
Finn. Altogether he drew from my tales eighty-seven 
drawings, and I do not think that more conscientious 
work was ever done by man. Writers of novels know 
well — and so ought readers of novels to have learned — 
that there are two modes of illustrating, either of which 
may be adopted equally by a bad and by a good artist. 
To which class Mr. Millais belongs I need not say; 
but, as a good artist, it was open to him simply to make 
a pretty picture, or to study the work of the author 
from whose writing he was bound to take hi3 subject. 



130 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I have too often found that the former alternative has 
been thought to be the better, as it certainly is the 
easier method. An artist will frequently dislike to 
subordinate his ideas to those of an author, and will 
sometimes be too idle to find out what those ideas are. 
But this artist was neither proud nor idle. In every 
figure that he drew it was his object to promote the 
views of the writer whose work he had undertaken to 
illustrate, and he never spared himself any pains in 
studying that work, so as to enable him to do so. I 
have carried on some of those characters from book 
to book, and have had my own early ideas impressed 
indelibly on my memory by the excellence of his delin- 
eations. Those illustrations were commenced fifteen 
years ago, and from that time up to this day my affec- 
tion for the man of whom I am speaking has increased. 
To see him has always been a pleasure. His voice has 
been a sweet sound in my ears. Behind his back I have 
never heard him praised without joining the eulogist; 
I have never heard a word spoken against him without 
opposing the censurer. These words, should he ever 
see them, will come to him from the grave, and will 
tell him of my regard, — as one living man never tells 
another. 

Sir Charles Taylor, who carried me home in his 
brougham that evening, and thus commenced an inti- 
macy which has since been very close, was born to 
wealth, and was therefore not compelled by the neces- 
sities of a profession to enter the lists as an author. 
But he lived much with those who did so, — and could 
have done it himself had want or ambition stirred him. 
He was our king at the Garrick Club, to which, how- 
ever, I did not yet belong. He gave the best dinners 



FRAMLEY PARSONAGE I3I 

of my time, and was, — happily I may say is,^ — the best 
giver of dinners. A man rough of tongue, brusque in 
his manners, odious to those who dislike him, some- 
what inclined to tyranny, he is the prince of friends, 
honest as the sun, and as openhanded as Charity itself. 
Robert Bell has now been dead nearly ten years. As 
I look back over the interval and remember how inti- 
mate we were, it seems odd to me that we should have 
known each other for no more than six years. He was 
a man who had lived by his pen from his very youth; 
and was so far successful that I do not think that want 
ever came near him. But he never made that mark 
which his industry and talents would have seemed to 
ensure. He was a man well known to literary men, 
but not known to readers. As a journalist he was useful 
and conscientious, but his plays and novels never made 
themselves popular. He wrote a life of Canning, and 
he brought out an annotated edition of the British 
poets ; but he achieved no great success. I have known 
no man better read in English literature. Hence his 
conversation had a peculiar charm, but he was not 
equally happy with his pen. He will long be remem- 
bered at the Literary Fund Committees, of which he 
was a staunch and most trusted supporter. I think it 
was he who first introduced me to that board. It has 
often been said that literary men are peculiarly apt to 
think that they are slighted and unappreciated. Robert 
Bell certainly never achieved the position in literature 
which he once aspired to fill, and which he was justified 
in thinking that he could earn for himself. I have 
frequently discussed these subjects with him, but I never 

1 Alas ! within a year of the writing of this he went 
Irom us. 



132 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

heard from his mouth a word of complaint as to his 
own literary fate. He liked to hear the chimes go at 
midnight, and he loved to have ginger hot in his mouth. 
On such occasions no sound ever came out of a man's 
lips sweeter than his wit and gentle revelry. 

George Lewes, — with his wife, whom all the world 
knows as George Eliot, — has also been and still is one 
of my dearest friends. He is, I think, the acutest critic 
I know, — and the severest. His severity, however, is a 
fault. His intention to be honest, even when honesty 
may give pain, has caused him to give pain when 
honesty has not required it. He is essentially a doubter, 
and has encouraged himself to doubt till the faculty of 
trusting has almost left him. I am not speaking of the 
personal trust which one man feels in another, but of 
that confidence in literary excellence, which is, I think, 
necessary for the full enjoyment of literature. In one 
modern writer he did believe thoroughly. Nothing can 
be more charming than the unstinted admiration which 
he has accorded to everything that comes from the pen 
of the wonderful woman to whom his lot has been 
united. To her name I shall recur again when speak- 
ing of the novelists of the present day. 

Of " Billy Russell," as we always used to call him, 
I may say that I never knew but one man equal to him 
in the quickness and continuance of witty speech. That 
one man was Charles Lever — also an Irishman — whom 
I had known from an earlier date, and also with close 
intimacy. Of the two, I think that Lever was perhaps 
the more astounding producer of good things. His man- 
ner was perhaps a little the happier, and his turns more 
sharp and unexpected. But " Billy " also was marvel- 
lous. Whether abroad as special correspondent, or at 
home amidst the flurry of his newspaper work, he was a 



133 

charming companion; his ready wit always gave him 
the last word. 

Of Thackeray I will speak again when I record his 
death. 

There were many others whom I met for the first 
time at George Smith's table. Albert Smith, for the 
first, and indeed for the last time, as he died soon after ; 
Higgins, whom all the world knew as Jacob Omnium, 
a man I greatly regarded; Dallas, who for a time was 
literary critic to the Times, and who certainly in that 
capacity did better work than has appeared since in the 
same department; George Augustus Sala, who, had he 
given himself fair play, would have risen to higher 
eminence than that of being the best writer in his day 
of sensational leading articles ; and Fitz-James Stephen, 
a man of very different calibre, who had not yet culmi- 
nated, but who, no doubt, will culminate among our 
judges. There were many others; — but I cannot now 
recall their various names as identified with those 
banquets. 

Of Framley Parsonage I need only further say, that 
as I wrote it I became more closely than ever acquainted 
with the new shire which I had added to the English 
counties. I had it all in my mind, — its roads and rail- 
roads, its towns and parishes, its members of Parlia- 
ment, and the different hunts which rode over it- i 
knew all the great lords and their castles, the squires 
and their parks, the rectors and their churches. This 
was the fourth novel of which I had placed the scene 
in Barsetshire, and as I wrote it I made a map of the 
dear county. Throughout these stories there has been 
no name given to a fictitious site which does not repre- 
sent to me a spot of which I know all the accessories, 
as though I had lived and wandered there. 



CHAPTER IX 



NORTH AMERICA; ORLEY FARM 

When I had half-finished Framley Parsonage, I went 
back to my other story, Castle Richmond, which I was 
writing for Messrs. Chapman & Hall, and completed 
that. I think that this was the only occasion on which 
I have had two different novels in my mind at the same 
time. This, however, did not create either difficulty or 
confusion. Many of us live in different circles ; and 
when we go from our friends in the town to our friends 
in the country, we do not usually fail to remember the 
little details of the one life or the other. Tht parson 
at Rusticum, with his wife and his wife's mother, and 
all his belongings; and our old friend, the Squire, with 
his family history; and Farmer Mudge, who has been 
cross with us, because we rode so unnecessarily over 
his barley; and that rascally poacher, once a game- 
keeper, who now traps all the foxes; and pretty Mary 
Cann, whose marriage with the wheelwright we did 
something to expedite; — though we are alive to them 
all, do not drive out of our brain the club gossip, or 
the memories of last season's dinners, or any incident 
of our London intimacies. In our lives we are always 
weaving novels, and we manage to keep the different 
tales distinct. A man does, in truth, remember that 
which it interests him to remember; and when we hear 
that memory has gone as age has come on, we should 
134 



CASTLE RICHMOND I35 

understand that the capacity for interest in the matter 
concerned has perished. A man will be generally very 
old and feeble before he forgets how much money he 
has in the funds. There is a good deal to be learned 
by any one who wishes to write a novel well ; but when 
the art has been acquired, I do not see why two or 
three should not be well written at the same time. I 
have never found myself thinking much about the work 
that I had to do till I was doing it. I have indeed for 
many years almost abandoned the effort to think, trust- 
ing myself, with the narrowest thread of a plot, to work 
the matter out when the pen is in my hand. But my 
mind is constantly employing itself on the work I have 
done. Had I left either Framley Parsonage or Castle 
Richmond half-finished fifteen years ago, I think I could 
complete the tales now with very little trouble. I have 
not looked at Castle Richmond since it was published; 
and poor as the work is, I remember all the incidents. 

Castle Richmond certainly was not a success, — 
though the plot is a fairly good plot, and is much more 
of a plot than I have generally been able to find. The 
scene is laid in Ireland, during the famine; and I am 
well aware now that English readers no longer like 
Irish stories. I cannot understand why it should be 
so, as the Irish character is peculiarly well fitted for 
romance. But Irish subjects generally have become dis- 
tasteful. This novel, however, is of itself a weak pro- 
duction. The characters do not excite sympathy. The 
heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and 
the other a prig. As regards the scamp, the girl's 
mother is her own rival. Rivalry of the same nature 
has been admirably depicted by Thackeray in his 
Esmond; but there the mother's love seems to be justi- 
fied by the girl's indifference. In Castle Richmond the 



136 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

mother- strives id rob her daughter of the man's love. 
The girl herself has no character ; and the mother, who 
is strong enough, is almost revolting. The dialogue is 
often lively, and some of the incidents are well told; 
but the story as a whole was a failure. I cannot remem- 
ber, however, that it was roughly handled by the critics 
when it came out; and I much doubt whether anything 
so hard was said of it then as that which I have said 
here. 

I was now settled at Waltham Cross, in a house in 
which I could entertain a few friends modestly, where 
we grew our cabbages and strawberries, made our own 
butter, and killed our own pigs. I occupied it for 
twelve years, and they were years to me of great pros- 
perity. In 1 86 1 I became a member of the Garrick 
Club, with which institution I have since been much 
identified. I had belonged to it about two years, when, 
on Thackeray's death, I was invited to fill his place on 
the Committee, and I have been one of that august body 
ever since. Having up to that time lived very little 
among men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, 
having even as a boy been banished from social gather- 
ings, I enjoyed infinitely at first the gaiety of the Gar- 
rick. It was a festival to me to dine there — which I 
did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play a 
rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I 
.am speaking now of the old club in King Street. This 
playing of whist before dinner has since that become a 
habit with me, so that unless there be something else 
special to do — unless there be hunting, or I am wanted 
to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my house- 
hold — it is " my custom always in the afternoon." I 
have sometimes felt sore with myself for this persist- 
ency, feeling that I was making myself a slave to an 



137 

amusement which has not after all very much to recom- 
mend it. I have often thought that I would break 
myself away from it, and " swear off," as Rip Van 
Winkle says. But my swearing off has been like that 
of Rip Van Winkle. And now, as I think of it coolly, 
I do not know but that I have been right to cling to it. 
As a man grows old he wants amusement, more even 
than when he is young; and then it becomes so difficult 
to find amusement. Reading should, no doubt, be the 
delight of men's leisure hours. Had I to choose between 
books and cards, I should no doubt take the books. But 
I find that I can seldom read with pleasure for above 
an hour and a half at a time, or more than three hours 
a day. As I write this I am aware that hunting must 
soon be abandoned. After sixty it is given but to few 
men to ride straight across country, and I cannot bring 
myself to adopt any other mode of riding. I think that 
without cards I should now be much at a loss. When 
I began to play at the Garrick, I did so simply because 
I liked the society of the men who played. 

I think that I became popular among those with whom 
I associated. I have long been aware of a certain 
weakness in my own character, which I may call a 
craving for love. I have ever had a wish to be liked 
by those around me, — a wish that during the first half 
of my life was never gratified. In my school-days no 
small part of my misery came from the envy with which 
I regarded the popularity of popular boys. They seemed 
to me to live in a social paradise, while the desolation 
of my pandemonium was complete. And afterwards, 
when I was in London as a young man, I had but few 
friends. Among the clerks in the Post Office I held my 
own fairly for the first two or three years; but even 
then I regarded myself as something of a pariah. My 



138 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Irish life had been much better. I had had my wife 
and children, and had been sustained by a feeling of 
general respect. But even in Ireland I had in truth 
lived but little in society. Our means had been suffi- 
cient for our wants, but insufficient for entertaining 
others. It was not till we had settled ourselves at 
Waltham that I really began to live much with others. 
The Garrick Club was the first assemblage of men at 
which I felt myself to be popular. 

I soon became a member of other clubs. There was 
the Arts Club in Hanover Square, of which I saw the 
opening, but from which, after three or four years, I 
withdrew my name, having found that during these 
three or four years I had not once entered the building. 
Then I was one of the originators of the Civil Service 
Club — not from judgment, but instigated to do so by 
others. That also I left for the same reason. In 1864 
I received the honour of being elected by the Committee 
at the Athenaeum. For this I was indebted to the kind- 
ness of Lord Stanhope ; and I never was more surprised 
than when I was informed of the fact. About the same 
time I became a member of the Cosmopolitan, a little 
club that meets twice a week in Charles Street, Berkeley 
Square, and supplies to all its members, and its mem- 
bers' friends, tea and brandy and water without charge ! 
The gatherings there I used to think very delightful. 
One met Jacob Omnium, Monckton Milnes, Tom 
Hughes, William Stirling, Henry Reeve, Arthur Rus- 
sell, Tom Taylor, and such like ; and generally a strong 
political element, thoroughly well mixed, gave a certain 
spirit to the place. Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, William 
Forster, Lord Enfield, Lord Kimberley, George Ben- 
tinck, Vernon Harcourt, Bromley Davenport, Knatch- 
bull Huguessen, with many others, used to whisper the 



"brown, JONES, AND ROBINSON " 1 39 

secrets of Parliament with free tongues. Afterwards I 
became a member of the Turf, which I found to be serv- 
iceable — or the reverse — only for the playing of whist 
at high points. 

In August, 1861, I wrote another novel for the Corn- 
hill Magazine. It was a short story, about one volume 
in length, and was called The Struggles of Brown, 
Jones, and Robinson. In this I attempted a style for 
which I certainly was not qualified, and to which I 
never had again recourse. It was meant to be funny, 
was full of slang, and was intended as a satire on the 
ways of trade. Still I think that there is some good 
fun it it, but I have heard no one else express such an 
opinion. I do not know that I ever heard any opinion 
expressed on it, except by the publisher, who kindly 
remarked that he did not think it was equal to my usual 
work. Though he had purchased the copyright, he did 
not republish the story in a book form till 1870, and 
then it passed into the world of letters suh silentio. I 
do not know that it was ever criticised or ever read. I 
received £600 for it. From that time to this I have 
been paid at about that rate for my work — £600 for the 
quantity contained in an ordinary novel volume, or 
£3000 for a long tale published in twenty parts, which 
is equal in length to five such volumes. I have oc- 
casionally, I think, received something more than this, 
never I think less for any tale, except when I have pub- 
lished my work anonymously.^ Having said so much, 
I need not further specify the prices as I mention the 
books as they were written. I will, however, when I 
am completing this memoir, give a list cf all the sums 
I have received for my literary labours. I think that 

^ Since the date at which this was written I have en- 
countered a diminution in price. 



I40 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Brown, Jones and Robinson was the hardest bargain I 
ever sold to a publisher. 

In 1861 the War of Secession had broken out in 
America, and from the first I interested myself much in 
the question. My mother had thirty years previously 
written a very popular, but, as I had thought, a some- 
what unjust book about our cousins over the water. 
She had seen what was distasteful in the manners of a 
young people, but had hardly recognised their energy, 
I had entertained for many years an ambition to follow 
her footsteps there, and to write another book. I had 
already paid a short visit to New York City and State 
on my way home from the West Indies, but had not 
seen enough then to justify me in the expression oi 
any opinion. The breaking out of the war did not 
make me think that the time was peculiarly fit for such 
inquiry as I wished to make, but it did represent itself 
as an occasion on which a book might be popular. I 
consequently consulted the two great powers with whom 
I was concerned. Messrs. Chapman & Hall, the pub- 
lishers, were one power, and I had no difficulty in 
arranging my affairs with them. They agreed to publish 
the book on my terms, and bade me God-speed on my 
journey. The other power was the Postmaster-General 
and Mr. Rowland Hill, the Secretary of the Post Office. 
I wanted leave of absence for the unusual period of 
nine months, and fearing that I should not get it by 
the ordinary process of asking the Secretary, I went 
direct to his lordship. " Is it on the plea of ill-health? '* 
he asked, looking into my face, which was then that of 
a very robust man. His lordship knew the Civil Serv- 
ice as well as any one living, and must have seen 
much of falseness and fraudulent pretence, or he could 
not have asked that question. I told him that I was 



" BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON " I4I 

very well, but that I wanted to write a book. " Had I 
any special ground to go upon in asking for such indul- 
gence ? " I had, I said, done my duty well by the serv- 
ice. There was a good deal of demurring, but I got 
my leave for nine months, — and I knew that I had 
earned it. Mr. Hill attached to the minute granting 
me the leave an intimation that it was to be considered 
as a full equivalent for the special services rendered by 
me to the department. I declined, however, to accept 
the grace with such a stipulation, and it was withdrawn 
by the directions of the Postmaster-General.^ 

I started for the States in August and returned in 
the following May. The war was raging during the 
time that I was there, and the country was full of 
soldiers. A part of the time I spent in Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, and Missouri, among the troops, along the line 
of attack. I visited all the States (excepting Cali- 
fornia) which had not then seceded, — failing to make 
my way into the seceding States unless I was prepared 
to visit them with an amount of discomfort I did not 
choose to endure. I worked very hard at the task I 
had assigned to myself, and did, I think, see much of 
the manners and institutions of the people. Nothing 
struck me more than their persistence in the ordinary 
pursuits of life in spite of the war which was around 
them. Neither industry nor amusement seemed to meet 
with any check. Schools, hospitals, and institutes were 

1 During the period of my service in the Post Oflfice I 
did very much special work for which I never asked any 
remuneration, — and never received any, though payments 
for special services were common in the department at that 
time. But if there was to be a question of such remunera- 
tion, I did not choose that my work should be valued at 
the price put upon it by Mr. Hill. 



142 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

by no means neglected because new regiments were 
daily required. The truth, I take it, is that we, all of 
us, soon adapt ourselves to the circumstances around 
us. Though three parts of London were in flames I 
should no doubt expect to have my dinner served to me 
if I lived in the quarter which was free from fire. 

The book I wrote was very much longer than that on 
the West Indies, but was also written almost without 
a note. It contained much information, and, with many 
inaccuracies, was a true book. But it was not well 
done. It is tedious and confused, and will hardly, I 
think, be of future value to those who wish to make 
themselves acquainted with the United States. It was 
published about the middle of the war, — just at the time 
in which the hopes of those who loved the South were 
most buoyant, and the fears of those who stood by the 
North were the strongest. But it expressed an assured 
confidence — which never quavered in a page or in a 
line — that the North would win. This assurance was 
based on the merits of the Northern cause, on the 
superior strength of the Northern party, and on a con- 
viction that England would never recognise the South, 
and that France would be guided in her policy by 
England. I was right in my prophecies, and right, I 
think, on the grounds on which they were made. The 
Southern cause was bad. The South had provoked the 
quarrel because its political supremacy was checked by 
the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. It had 
to fight as a little man against a big man, and fought 
gallantly. That gallantry, — and a feeling based on a 
misconception as to American character that the 
Southerners are better gentlemen than their Northern 
brethren, — did create great sympathy here ; but I believe 
that the country was too just to be led into political 



143 

action by a spirit of romance, and I was warranted in 
that belief. There was a moment in which the Northern 
cause was in danger, and the danger lay certainly in 
the prospect of British interference. Messrs. Slidell 
and Mason, — two men insignificant in themselves, — 
had been sent to Europe by the Southern party, and 
had managed to get on board the British mail steamer 
called " The Trent," at the Havannah. A most undue 
importance was attached to this mission by Mr. Lin- 
coln's government, and efforts were made to stop them. 
A certain Commodore Wilkes, doing duty as policeman 
on the seas, did stop the " Trent," and took the men 
out. They were carried, one to Boston and one to 
New York, and were incarcerated, amidst the triumph 
of the nation. Commodore Wilkes, who had done noth- 
ing in which a brave man could take glory, was made a 
hero and received a prize sword. England of course 
demanded her passengers back, and the States for a 
while refused to surrender them. But Mr. Seward was 
at that time the Secretary of State, and Mr. Seward, 
with many political faults, was a wise man. I was at 
Washington at the time, and it was known there that 
the contest among the leading Northerners was very 
sharp on the matter. Mr. Sumner and Mr. Seward 
were, under Mr. Lincoln, the two chiefs of the party. 
It was understood that Mr. Sumner was opposed to the 
rendition of the men, and Mr. Seward in favour of it. 
Mr. Seward's counsels at last prevailed with the Presi- 
dent, and England's declaration of war was prevented. 
I dined with Mr. Seward on the day of the decision, 
meeting Mr. Sumner at his house, and was told as I 
left the dining-room what the decision had been. Dur- 
ing the afternoon I and others had received intimation 
through the embassy that we might probably have to 



144 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

leave Washington at an hour's notice. This, I think, 
was the severest danger that the Northern cause 
encountered during the war. 

But my book, though it was right in its views on 
this subject, — and wrong in none other as far as I 
know, — was not a good book. I can recommend no one 
to read it now in order that he may be either instructed 
or amused, — as I can do that on the West Indies. It 
served its purpose at the time, and was well received by 
the public and by the critics. 

Before starting to America I had completed Orley 
Farm, a novel which appeared in shilling numbers, — 
after the manner in which Pickwick, Nicholas Nicklehy, 
and many others had been published. Most of those 
among my friends who talk to me now about my novels, 
and are competent to form an opinion on the subject, 
say that this is the best I have written. In this opinion 
I do not coincide. I think that the highest merit which 
a novel can have consists in perfect delineation of 
character, rather than in plot, or humour, or pathos, 
and I shall before long mention a subsequent work in 
which I think the main character of the story is so well 
developed as to justify me in asserting its claim above 
the others. The plot of Orley Farm is probably the 
best I have ever made ; but it has the fault of declaring 
itself, and thus coming to an end too early in the book. 
When Lady Mason tells her ancient lover that she did 
forge the will, the plot of Orley Farm has unravelled 
itself; — and this she does in the middle of the tale. 
Independently, however, of this the novel is good. Sir 
Peregrine Orme, his grandson, Madeline Stavely, Mr. 
Furnival, Mr. Chaffanbrass, and the commercial gen- 
tlemen, are all good. The hunting is good. The law- 
yer's talk is good. Mr. Moulder carves his turkey 



145 

admirably, and Mr. Kantwise sells his tables and chairs 
with spirit. I do not know that there is a dull page in 
the book. I am fond of Orley Farm; — and am espe- 
cially fond of its illustrations by Millais, which are the 
best I have seen in any novel in any language. 

I now felt that I had gained my object. In 1862 I 
had achieved that which I contemplated when I went 
to London in 1834, and towards which I made my first 
attempt when I began the Macdermots in 1843. I had 
created for myself a position among literary men, and 
had secured to myself an income on which I might live 
in ease and comfort, — which ease and comfort have 
been made to include many luxuries. From this time 
for a period of twelve years my income averaged £4500 
a year. Of this I spent about two-thirds, and put by 
one. I ought perhaps to have done better, — to have 
spent one-third, and put by two; but I have ever been 
too well inclined to spend freely that which has come 
easily. 

This, however, has been so exactly the life which 
my thoughts and aspirations had marked out, — thoughts 
and aspirations which used to cause me to blush with 
shame because I was so slow in forcing myself to the 
work which they demanded, — that I have felt some 
pride in having attained it. I have before said how 
entirely I fail to reach the altitude of those who think 
that a man devoted to letters should be indifferent to 
the pecuniary results for which work is generally done. 
An easy income has always been regarded by me as a 
great blessing. Not to have to think of sixpences, or 
very much of shillings; not to be unhappy because the 
coals have been burned too quickly, and the house linen 
wants renewing; not to be debarred by the rigour of 
necessity from opening one's hands, perhaps foolishly. 



146 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to one's friends; — all this to me has been essential to 
the comfort of life. I have enjoyed the comfort for I 
may almost say the last twenty years, though no man 
in his youth had less prospect of doing so, or would 
have been less likely at twenty-five to have had such 
luxuries foretold to him by his friends. 

But though the money has been sweet, the respect, 
the friendships, and the mode of life which has been 
achieved, have been much sweeter. In my boyhood, 
when I would be crawling up to school with dirty boots 
and trousers through the muddy lanes, I was always 
telling myself that the misery of the hour was not the 
worst of it, but that the mud and solitude and poverty 
of the time would insure me mud and solitude and 
poverty through my life. Those lads about me would 
go into Parliament, or become rectors and deans, or 
squires of parishes, or advocates thundering at the Bar. 
They would not live with me now, — but neither should 
I be able to live with them in after years. Neverthe- 
less I have lived with them. When, at the age in which 
others go to the universities, I became a clerk in the 
Post Office, I felt that my old visions were being real- 
ised. I did not think it a high calling. I did not know 
then how very much good work may be done by a 
member of the Civil Service who will show himself 
capable of doing it. The Post Office at last grew 
upon me and forced itself into my affections. I 
became intensely anxious that people should have 
their letters delivered to them punctually. But my hope 
to rise had always been built on the writing of novels, 
and at last by the writing of novels I had risen. 

I do not think that I ever toadied any one, or that I 
have acquired the character of a tuft-hunter. But here 
I do not scruple to say that I prefer the society of 



147 

distinguished people, and that even the distinction 
of wealth confers many advantages. The best edu- 
cation is to be had at a price as well as the best 
broadcloth. The son of a peer is more likely to rub his 
shoulders against well-informed men than the son of a 
tradesman. The graces come easier to the wife of him 
who has had great-grandfathers than they do to her 
whose husband has been less, — or more fortunate, as he 
may think it. The discerning man will recognise the 
information and the graces when they are achieved 
without such assistance, and will honour the owners of 
them the more because of the difficulties they have over- 
come ; — but the fact remains that the society of the well- 
born and of the wealthy will as a rule be worth seek- 
ing. I say this now, because these are the rules by 
which I have lived, and these are the causes which have 
instigated me to work. 

I have heard the question argued — On what terms 
should a man of inferior rank live with those who are 
manifestly superior to him? If a marquis or an earl 
honour me, who have no rank, with his intimacy, am I 
in my intercourse with him to remember our close 
acquaintance or his high rank ? I have always said that 
where the difference in position is quite marked, the 
overtures to intimacy should always come from the 
higher rank ; but if the intimacy be ever fixed, then that 
rank should be held of no account. It seems to me that 
intimate friendship admits of no standing but that of 
equality. I cannot be the Sovereign's friend, nor prob- 
ably the friend of many very much beneath the Sov- 
ereign, because such equality is impossible. 

When I first came to Waltham Cross in the winter 
of 1 859- 1 860, I had almost made up my mind that my 
hunting was over. I could not then count upon an 



t48 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

income which would enable me to carry on an amuse- 
ment which I should doubtless find much more expen- 
sive in England than in Ireland. I brought with me 
out of Ireland one mare, but she was too light for me 
to ride in the hunting-field. As, however, the money 
came in, I very quickly fell back into my old habits. 
First one horse was bought, then another, and then a 
third, till it became established as a fixed rule that I 
should not have less than four hunters in the stable. 
Sometimes when my boys have been at home I have 
had as many as six. Essex was the chief scene of my 
sport, and gradually I became known there almost as 
well as though I had been an Essex squire, to the 
manner born. Few have investigated more closely than 
I have done the depth, and' breadth, and water-holding 
capacities of an Essex ditch. It will, I think, be ac- 
corded to me by Essex men generally that I have 
ridden hard. The cause of my delight in the amuse- 
ment I have never been able to analyse to my own 
satisfaction. In the first place, even now, I know very 
little about hunting, — though I know very much of the 
accessories of the field. I am too blind to see hounds 
turning, and cannot therefore tell whether the fox has 
gone this way or that. Indeed all the notice I take of 
hounds is not to ride over them. My eyes are so con- 
stituted that I can never see the nature of a fence. I 
either follow some one, or ride at it with the full 
conviction that I may be going into a horse-pond or a 
gravel-pit. I have jumped into both one and the other. 
I am very heavy, and have never ridden expensive 
horses. I am also now old for such work, being so 
stiff that I cannot get on to my horse without the aid 
of a block or a bank. But I ride still after the same 
fashion, with a boy's energy, determined to get ahead 



ORLEY FARM I49 

if it may possibly be done, hating the roads, despising 
young men who ride them, and with a feeling that life 
can not, with all her riches, have given me anything 
better than when I have gone through a long run to 
the finish, keeping a place, not of glory, but of credit, 
among my juniors. 



CHAPTER X 

CAN YOU FORGIVE 
AND THE " FORTNIGHTLY 
REVIEW " 

During the early months of 1862 Orley Farm was still 
being brought out in numbers, and at the same time 
Brown, Jones and Robinson was appearing in the Corn- 
hill Magazine. In September, 1862, the Small House at 
Allington began its career in the same periodical. The 
work on North America had also come out in 1862. 
In August, 1863, the first number of Cayi You Forgive 
Her? was published as a separate serial, and was con- 
tinued through 1864. In 1863 a short novel was pro- 
duced in the ordinary volume form, called Rachel Ray. 
In addition to these I published during the time two 
volumes of stories called The Tales of all Countries. In 
the early spring of 1865 Miss Mackenzie was issued in 
the same form as Rachel Ray; and in May of the same 
year The Belton Estate was commenced with the com- 
mencement of the Fortnightly Review, of which period- 
ical I will say a few words in this chapter. 

I quite admit that I crowded my wares into the 
market too quickly, — because the reading world could 
not want such a quantity of matter from the hands of 
one author in so short a space of time. I had not been 
quite so fertile as the unfortunate gentleman who dis- 
gusted the publisher in Paternoster Row, — in the story 
of whose productiveness I have always thought there, 
150 



THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON I5I 

was a touch of romance, — but I had probably done 
enough to make both pubHshers and readers think that 
I was coming too often beneath their notice. Of pub- 
lishers, however, I must speak collectively, as my sins 
were, I think, chiefly due to the encouragement which 
I received from them individually. What I wrote for 
the Cornhill Magazine, I always wrote at the instiga- 
tion of Mr. Smith. My other works were published by 
Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in compliance with contracts 
made by me with them, and always made with their 
good-will. Could I have been two separate persons at 
one and the same time, of whom one might have been 
devoted to Cornhill and the other to the interests of 
the firm in Piccadilly, it might have been very well; — 
but as I preserved my identity in both places, I myself 
became aware that my name was too frequent on title- 
pages. 

Critics, if they ever trouble themselves with these 
pages, will, of course, say that in what I have now said 
I have ignored altogether the one great evil of rapid 
production, — namely, that of inferior work. And of 
course if the work was inferior because of the too great 
rapidity of production, the critics would be right. Giv- 
ing to the subject the best of my critical abilities, and 
judging of my own work as nearly as possible as I 
would that of another, I believe that the work which 
has been done quickest has been done the best. I have 
composed better stories — that is, have created better 
plots — than those of The Small House at Allington and 
Can You Forgive Herf and I have portrayed two or 
three better characters than are to be found in the pages 
of either of them ; but taking these books all through, I 
do not think that I have ever done better work. Nor 
would these have been improved by any effort in the 



152 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

art of story telling, had each of these been the isolated 
labour of a couple of years. How short is the time 
devoted to the manipulation of a plot can be knowi? 
only to those who have written plays and novels; — - 
I may say also, how very little time the brain is able to 
devote to such wearing work. There are usually some 
hours of agonising doubt, almost of despair, — so at least 
it has been with me, — or perhaps some days. And then, 
with nothing settled in my brain as to the final develop- 
ment of events, with no capability of settling anything, 
but with a most distinct conception of some character 
or characters, I have rushed at the work as a rider 
rushes at a fence which he does not see. Sometimes 
I have encountered what, in hunting language, we call 
a cropper. I had such a fall in two novels of mine, of 
which I have already spoken — The Bertrams and Castle 
Richmond. I shall have to speak of other such troubles. 
But these failures have not arisen from over-hurried 
work. When my work has been quicker done, — and it 
has sometimes been done very quickly — the rapidity 
has been achieved by hot pressure, not in the concep- 
tion, but in the telling of the story. Instead of writ- 
ing eight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead 
of working five days a week, I have worked seven. I 
have trebled my usual average, and have done so in 
circumstances which have enabled me to give up all my 
thoughts for the time to the book I have been writing. 
This has generally been done at some quiet spot among 
the mountains, — where there has been no society, no 
hunting, no whist, no ordinary household duties. And 
I am sure that the work so done has had in it the best 
truth and the highest spirit that I have been able to 
produce. At such times I have been able to imbue 
myself thoroughly with the characters I have had in 



153 

hand. I have wandered alone among the rocks and 
woods, crying at their grief, laughing at their absurdi- 
ties, and thoroughly enjoying their joy. I have been 
impregnated with my own creations till it has been my 
only excitement to sit with the pen in my hand, and 
drive my team before me at as quick a pace as I could 
make them travel. 

The critics will again say that all this may be very 
well as to the rough work of the author's own brain, 
but it will be very far from well in reference to the 
style in which that work has been given to the public. 
After all, the vehicle which a writer uses for conveying 
his thoughts to the public should not be less important 
to him than the thoughts themselves. An author can 
hardly hope to be popular unless he can use popular 
language. That is quite true; but then comes the 
question of achieving a popular — in other words, I may 
say, a good and lucid style. How may an author best 
acquire a mode of writing which shall be agreeable and 
easily intelligible to the reader? He must be correct, 
because without correctness he can be neither agreeable 
nor intelligible. Readers will expect him to obey those 
rules which they, consciously or unconsciously, have 
been taught to regard as binding on language; and 
unless he does obey them, he will disgust. Without 
much labour, no writer will achieve such a style. He 
has very much to learn; and, when he has learned that 
much, he has to acquire the habit of using what he has 
learned with ease. But all this must be learned and 
acquired, — not while he is writing that which shall 
please, but long before. His language must come from 
him as music comes from the rapid touch of the great 
performer's fingers; as words come from the mouth of 
the indignant orator; as letters fly from the fingers of 



154 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the trained compositor; as the syllables tinkled out by 
little bells form themselves to the ear of the telegra- 
phist. A man who thinks much of his words as he 
writes them will generally leave behind him work that 
smells of oil. I speak here, of course, of prose; for in 
poetry we know what care is necessary, and we form 
our taste accordingly. 

Rapid writing will no doubt give rise to inaccuracy, 
— chiefly because the ear, quick and true as may be its 
operation, will occasionally break down under pressure, 
and, before a sentence be closed, will forget the nature 
of the composition with which it was commenced. A 
singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, 
because other pluralities have intervened and have 
tempted the ear into plural tendencies. Tautologies 
will occur, because the ear, in demanding fresh em- 
phasis, has forgotten that the desired force has been 
already expressed. I need not multiply these causes of 
error, which must have been stumbling-blocks indeed 
when men wrote in the long sentences of Gibbon, but 
which Macaulay, with his multiplicity of divisions, has 
done so much to enable us to avoid. A rapid writer 
will hardly avoid these errors altogether. Speaking of 
myself, I am ready to declare that, with nmch train- 
ing, I have been unable to avoid them. But the writer 
for the press is rarely called upon — a writer of 
books should never be called upon — to send his manu- 
script hot from his hand to the printer. It has been 
my practice to read everything four times at least — 
thrice in manuscript and once in print. Very much of 
my work I have read twice in print. In spite of this 
I know that inaccuracies have crept through, — not 
single spies, but in battalions. From this I gather that 
the supervision has been insufficient, not that the work 



^'the small house at allington 155 

Itself has been done too fast. I am quite sure that 
those passages which have been written with the 
greatest stress of labour, and consequently with the 
greatest haste, have been the most effective and by no 
means the most inaccurate. 

The Small House at Allington redeemed my reputa- 
tion with the spirited proprietor of the Cornhill, which 
must, I should think, have been damaged by Brown, 
Jones, and Robinson. In it appeared Lily Dale, one of 
the characters which readers of my novels have liked 
the best. In the love with which she has been greeted 
I have hardly joined with much enthusiasm, feeling 
that she is somewhat of a French prig. She became 
first engaged to a snob, who jilted her; and then, 
though in truth she loved another man who was hardly 
good enough, she could not extricate herself sufficiently 
from the collapse of her first great misfortune to be 
able to make up her mind to be the wife of one whom, 
though she loved him, she did not altogether reverence. 
Prig as she was, she made her way into the hearts of 
many readers, both young and old; so that, from that 
time to this, I have been continually honoured with 
letters, the purport of which has always been to beg 
me to marry Lily Dale to Johnny Eames. Had I done so, 
however, Lily would never have so endeared herself 
to these people as to induce them to write letters to the 
author concerning her fate. It was because she could 
not get over her troubles that they loved her. Outside 
Lily Dale and the chief interest of the novel, The 
Small House at Allington is, I think, good. The De 
Courcy family are alive, as is also Sir Rafifle Buffie, 
who is a hero of the Civil Service. Sir Raffle was 
intended to represent a type, not a man; but the man 
for the picture was soon chosen, and I was often 



156 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

assured that the portrait was very like. I have never 
seen the gentleman with whom I am supposed to have 
taken the liberty. There is also an old squire down at 
Allington, whose life as a country gentleman with 
rather straitened means is, I think, well described. 

Of Can you Forgive Her? I cannot speak with too 
great affection, though I do not know that of itself it 
did very much to increase my reputation. As regards 
the story, it was formed chiefly on that of the play 
which my friend Mr. Bartley had rejected long since, 
the circumstances of which the reader may perhaps 
remember. The play had been called The Noble Jilt; 
but I was afraid of the name for a novel, lest the critics 
might throw a doubt on the nobility. There was more of 
tentative humility in that which I at last adopted. The 
character of the girl is carried through with consider- 
able strength, but is not attractive. The humorous 
characters, which are also taken from the play, — a 
buxom widow who with her eyes open chooses the most 
scampish of two selfish suitors because he is the bet- 
ter looking, — are well done. Mrs. Greenow, between 
Captain Bellfield and Mr. Cheeseacre, is very good 
fun — as far as the fun of novels is. But that which 
endears the book to me is the first presentation which 
I made in it of Plantagenet Palliser, with his wife, 
Lady Glencora. 

By no amount of description or asseveration could 
I succeed in making any reader understand how much 
these characters with their belongings have been to 
me in my latter life; or how frequently I have used 
them for the expression of my political or social 
convictions. They have been as real to me as free 
trade was to Mr. Cobden, or the dominion of a party 
to Mr. Disraeli; and as I have not been able to speak 



157 

from the benches of the House of Commons, or to 
thunder from platforms, or to be efficacious as a 
lecturer, they have served me as safety-valves by which 
to deliver my soul. Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had 
appeared in The Small House at Allington, but his 
birth had not been accompanied by many hopes. In 
the last pages of that novel he is made to seek a 
remedy for a foolish false step in life by marrying 
the grand heiress of the day; — but the personage of 
the great heiress does not appear till she comes on 
the scene as a married woman in Can You Forgive 
Herf He is the nephew and heir to a duke — the 
Duke of Omnium — who was first introduced in Doctor 
Thome, and afterwards in Framley Parsonage, and 
who is one of the belongings of whom I have spoken. 
In these personages and their friends, political and 
social, I have endeavoured to depict the faults and 
frailties and vices, — as also the virtues, the graces, 
and the strength of our highest classes; and if I have 
not made the strength and virtues predominant over 
the faults and vices, I have not painted the picture 
as I intended. Plantagenet Palliser I think to be a 
very noble gentleman, — such a one as justifies to the 
nation the seeming anomaly of an hereditary peerage 
and of primogeniture. His wife is in all respects 
very inferior to him; but she, too, has, or has been 
intended to have, beneath the thin stratum of her 
follies a basis of good principle, which enabled her to 
live down the conviction of the original wrong which 
was done to her, and taught her to endeavour to do 
her duty in the position to which she was called. 
She had received a great wrong, — having been made, 
when Httle more than a child, to marry a man for 
whom she cared nothing; — when, however, though 



158 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

she was little more than a child, her love had been 
given elsewhere. She had very heavy troubles, but 
they did not overcome her. 

As to the heaviest of these troubles, I will say 
a word in vindication of myself and of the way I 
handled it in my work. In the pages of Can You 
Forgive Herf the girl's first love is introduced, — 
beautiful, well-born, and utterly worthless. To save 
a girl from wasting herself, and an heiress from 
wasting her property on such a scamp, was certainly 
the duty of the girl's friends. But it must ever be 
wrong to force a girl into a marriage with a man she 
does not love, — and certainly the more so when there 
is another whom she does love. In my endeavour 
to teach this lesson I subjected the young wife to the 
terrible danger of overtures from the man to whom 
her heart had been given. I was walking no doubt 
on ticklish ground, leaving for a while a doubt on the 
question whether the lover might or might not succeed. 
Then there came to me a letter from a distinguished 
dignitary of our Church, a man whom all men 
honoured, treating me with severity for what I was 
doing. It had been one of the innocent joys of his 
life, said the clergyman, to have my novels read to 
him by his daughters. But now I was writing a book 
which caused him to bid them close it! Must I also 
turn away to vicious sensation such as this? Did I 
think that a wife contemplating adultery was a character 
fit for my pages? I asked him in return, whether 
from his pulpit, or at any rate from his communion- 
table, he did not denounce adultery to his audience; 
and if so, why should it not be open to me to preach 
the same doctrine to mine. I made known nothing 
which the purest girl could not but have learned, and 



"can you forgive her?'* 159 

ought not to have learned, elsewhere, and I certainly 
lent no attraction to the sin which I indicated. His 
rejoinder was full of grace, and enabled him to avoid 
the annoyance of argumentation without abandoning 
his cause. He said that the subject was so much too 
long for letters; that he hoped I would go and stay 
a week with him in the country, — so that we might 
have it out. That opportunity, however, has never 
yet arrived. 

Lady Glencora overcomes that trouble, and is 
brought, partly by her own sense of right and wrong, 
and partly by the genuine nobility of her husband's 
conduct, to attach herself to him after a certain fashion. 
The romance of her life is gone, but there remains 
a rich reality of which she is fully able to taste the 
flavour. She loves her rank and becomes ambitious, 
first of social, and then of political ascendancy. He is 
thoroughly true to her, after his thorough nature, and 
she, after her less perfect nature, is imperfectly true 
to him. 

In conducting these characters from one story to 
another I realised the necessity, not only of consistency, 
■ — which, had it been maintained by a hard exactitude, 
would have been untrue to nature, — but also of those 
changes which time always produces. There are, 
perhaps, but few of us who, after the lapse of ten 
years, will be found to have changed our chief charac- 
teristics. The selfish man will still be selfish, and the 
false man false. But our manner of showing or of 
hiding these characteristics will be changed, — as also 
our power of adding to or diminishing their intensity. 
It was my study that these people, as they grew in 
years, should encounter the changes which come upon 
us all; and I think that I have succeeded. The 



l60 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Duchess of Omnium, when she is playing the part of 
Prime Minister's wife, is the same woman as that 
Lady Glencora who almost longs to go off with Burgo 
Fitzgerald, but yet knows that she will never do so; 
and the Prime Minister Duke, with his wounded pride 
and sore spirit, is he who, for his wife's sake, left 
power and place when they were first offered to him; 
— but they have undergone the changes which a life 
so stirring as theirs would naturally produce. To do 
all this thoroughly was in my heart from first to last; 
but I do not know that the game has been worth the 
candle. 

To carry out my scheme I have had to spread 
my picture over so wide a canvas that I cannot expect 
that any lover of such art should trouble himself to 
look at it as a whole. Who will read Can You Forgive 
Her? Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux, and The Prime 
Minister consecutively, in order that they may under- 
stand the characters of the Duke of Omnium, of 
Plantagenet Palliser, and of Lady Glencora ? Who will 
ever know that they should be so read? But in the 
performance of the work I had much gratification, and 
was enabled from time to time to have in this way that 
fling at the political doings of the day which every 
man likes to take, if not in one fashion then in another. 
I look upon this string of characters, — carried some- 
times into other novels than those just named, — as the 
best work of my life. Taking him altogether, I think 
that Plantagenet Palliser stands more firmly on the 
ground than any other personage I have created. 

On Christmas day, 1863, we were startled by the news 
of Thackeray's death. He had then for many months 
given up the editorship of the Cornhill Magazine, — 
a position for which he was hardly fitted either by his 



i6i 

habits or temperament, — but was still employed in 
writing for its pages. I had known him only for 
four years, but had grown into much intimacy with 
him and his family. I regard him as one of the most 
tender-hearted human beings I ever knew, who, with 
an exaggerated contempt for the foibles of the world at 
large, would entertain an almost equally exaggerated 
sympathy with the joys and troubles of individuals 
around him. He had been unfortunate in early life 
— unfortunate in regard to money — unfortunate with 
an afflicted wife — unfortunate in having his home 
broken up before his children were fit to be his com- 
panions. This threw him too much upon clubs, and 
taught him to dislike general society. But it never 
affected his heart, or clouded his imagination. He 
could still revel in the pangs and joys of fictitious life, 
and could still feel — as he did to the very last — the 
duty of showing to his readers the evil consequences 
of evil conduct. It was perhaps his chief fault as a 
writer that he could never abstain from that dash of 
satire which he felt to be demanded by the weaknesses 
which he saw around him. The satirist who writes 
nothing but satire should write but little, — or it will 
seem that his satire springs rather from his own 
caustic nature than from the sins of the world in 
which he lives. I myself regard Esmond as the 
greatest novel in the English language, basing that 
judgment upon the excellence of its language, on the 
clear individuality of the characters, on the truth of 
its delineations in regard to the time selected, and on 
its great pathos. There are also in it a few scenes 
so told that even Scott has never equalled the telling. 
Let any one who doubts this read the passage in which 
Lady Castlewood induces the Duke of Hamilton to 



l62 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

think that his nuptials with Beatrice will be honoured 
if Colonel Esmond will give away the bride. When 
he went from us he left behind living novelists with 
great names ; but I think that they who best understood 
the matter felt that the greatest master of .fiction of 
this age had gone. 

Rachel Ray underwent a fate which no other novel 
of mine has encountered. Some years before this a 
periodical called Good Words had been established 
under the editorship of my friend Dr. Norman Macleod, 
a well-known Presbyterian pastor in Glasgow. In 1863 
he asked me to write a novel for his magazine, explain- 
ing to me that his principles did not teach him to 
confine his matter to religious subjects, and paying 
me the compliment of saying that he would feel himself 
quite safe in my hands. In reply I told him I thought 
he was wrong in his choice ; that though he might wish 
to give a novel to the readers of Good Words, a novel 
from me would hardly be what he wanted, and that 
I could not undertake to write either with any specially 
religious tendency, or in any fashion different from 
that which was usual to me. As worldly and — if any 
one thought me wicked — as wicked as I had heretofore 
been, I must still be, should I write for Good Words. 
He persisted in his request, and I came to terms as to 
a story for the periodical. I wrote it and sent it to 
him, and shortly afterwards received it back — a consid- 
erable portion having been printed — with an intimation 
that it would not do. A letter more full of wailing 
and repentance no man ever wrote. It was, he said, 
all his own fault. He should have taken my advice. 
He should have known better. But the story, such as 
it. was, he could not give to his readers in the pages 
of Good Words. Would I forgive him? Any 



"RACHEL RAY*' 163 

pecuniary loss to which his decision might subject me 
the owner of the publication would willingly make 
good. There was some loss — or rather would have 
been — and that money I exacted, feeling that the fault 
had in truth been with the editor. There is the tale 
now to speak for itself. It is not brilliant nor in 
any way very excellent; but it certainly is not very 
wicked. There is some dancing in one of the early 
chapters, described, no doubt, with that approval of 
the amusement which I have always entertained; 
and it was this to which my friend demurred. It is 
more true of novels than perhaps of anything else, 
that one man's food is another man's poison. 

Miss Mackenzie was written with a desire to prove 
that a novel may be produced without any love; but 
even in this attempt it breaks down before the 
conclusion. In order that I might be strong in my 
purpose, I took for my heroine a very unattractive old 
maid, who was overwhelmed with money troubles; but 
even she was in love before the end of the book, and 
made a romantic marriage with an old man. There is 
in this story an attack upon charitable bazaars, made 
with a violence which will, I think, convince any reader 
that such attempts at raising money were at the time 
very odious to me. I beg to say that since that I have 
had no occasion to alter my opinion. Miss Mackenzie 
was published in the early spring of 1865. 

At the same time I was engaged with others in 
establishing a periodical Review, in which some of 
us trusted much, and from which we expected great 
things. There was, however, in truth so little combina- 
tion of idea among us, that we were not justified 
in our trust or in our expectations. And yet we were 
honest in our purpose, and have, I think, done some 



164 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

good by our honesty. The matter on which we were 
all agreed was freedom of speech, combined with per- 
sonal responsibility. We would be neither conserva- 
tive nor liberal, neither religious nor free-thinking, 
neither popular nor exclusive; — but we would let any 
man who had a thing to say, and knew how to say it, 
speak freely. But he should always speak with the 
responsibility of his name attached. In the very 
beginning I militated against this impossible negation 
of principles, — and did so most irrationally, seeing that 
I had agreed to the negation of principles, — by declar- 
ing that nothing should appear denying or questioning 
the divinity of Christ. It was a most preposterous 
claim to make for such a publication as we proposed, 
and it at once drove from us one or two who had 
proposed to join us. But we went on, and our company 
— limited — was formed. We subscribed, I think, £1250 
each. I at least subscribed that amount, and — having 
agreed to bring out our publication every fortnight, 
after the manner of the well-known French publication, 
— we called it The Fortnightly. We secured the 
services of G. H. Lewes as our editor. We agreed 
to manage our finances by a Board, which was to meet 
once a fortnight, and of which I was the Chairman. 
And we determined that the payments for our literature 
should be made on a liberal and strictly ready-money 
system. We carried out our principles till our money 
was all gone, and then we sold the copyright to Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall for a trifle. But before we parted 
with our property we found that a fortnightly issue 
was not popular with the trade through whose hands 
the work must reach the public; and, as our periodical 
had not become sufficiently popular itself to bear down 
such opposition, we succumbed, and brought it out once 



THE " FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW " I65 

a month. Still it was The Fortnightly, and still it is 
The Fortnightly. Of all the serial publications of the 
day, it probably is the most serious, the most earnest, 
the least devoted to amusement, the least flippant, the 
least jocose, — and yet it has the face to show itself 
month after month to the world, with so absurd a 
misnomer ! It is, as all who know the laws of modern 
literature are aware, a very serious thing to change 
the name of a periodical. By doing so you begin an 
altogether new enterprise. Therefore should the name 
be well chosen; — whereas this was very ill chosen, a 
fault for which I alone was responsible. 

That theory of eclecticism was altogether impracti- 
cable. It was as though a gentleman should go into 
the House of Commons determined to support no party, 
but to serve his country by individual utterances. Such 
gentlemen have gone into the House of Commons, 
but they have not served their country much. Of 
course the project broke down. Liberalism, free- 
thinking, and open inquiry will never object to appear 
in company with their opposites, because they have 
the conceit to think that they can quell those opposites; 
but the opposites will not appear in conjunction with 
liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry. As a 
natural consequence, our new publication became an 
organ of liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry. 
The result has been good; and though there is much 
in the now established principles of The Fortnightly 
with which I do not myself agree, I may safely say 
that the publication has assured an individuality, and 
asserted for itself a position in our periodical literature, 
which is well understood and highly respected. 

As to myself and my own hopes in the matter, — 
I was craving after some increase in literary honesty. 



l66 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which I think is still desirable, but which is hardly 
to be attained by the means which then recommended 
themselves to me. In one of the early num>bers I 
wrote a paper advocating the signature of the authors 
to periodical writing, admitting that the system should 
not be extended to journalistic articles on political 
subjects. I think that I made the best of my case; but 
further consideration has caused me to doubt whether 
the reasons which induced me to make an exception 
in favour of political writing do not extend themselves 
also to writing on other subjects. Much of the literary 
criticism which we now have is very bad indeed; — 
so bad as to be open to the charge both of dishonesty 
and incapacity. Books are criticised without being 
read, — are criticised by favour, — and are trusted by 
editors to the criticism of the incompetent. If the 
names of the critics were demanded, editors would be 
more careful. But I fear the effect would be that 
we should get but little criticism, and that the public 
would put but little trust in that little. An ordinary 
reader would not care to have his books recommended 
to him by Jones; but the recommendation of the great 
unknown comes to him with all the weight of the 
TimeSj the Spectator^ or the Saturday. 

Though I admit so much, I am not a recreant from 
the doctrine I then preached. I think that the name of 
the author does tend to honesty, and that the knowledge 
that it will be inserted adds much to the author's 
industry and care. It debars him also from illegitimate 
license and dishonest assertions. A man should never 
be ashamed to acknowledge that which he is not 
ashamed to publish. In The Fortnightly everything has 
been signed, and in this way good has, I think, been 
done. Signatures to articles in other periodicals have 



THE " FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW " 167 

become much more common since The Fortnightly was 
commenced. 

After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, 
feeHng that the work pressed too severely on his 
moderate strength. Our loss in him was very great, 
and there was considerable difficulty in finding a suc- 
cessor. I must say that the present proprietor has 
been fortunate in the choice he did make. Mr. John 
Morley has done the work with admirable patience, 
zeal, and capacity. Of course he has got around him 
a set of contributors whose modes of thought are what 
we may call much advanced ; he being " much 
advanced " himself, would not work with other aids. 
The periodical has a peculiar tone of its own; but it 
holds its own with ability, and though there are many 
who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it. 
When the company sold it, having spent about £9000 
on it, it was worth little or nothing. Now I believe it 
to be a good property. 

My own last personal concern with it was on a 
matter of fox-hunting.^ There came out in it an 
article from the pen of Mr. Freeman the historian, 
condemning the amusement, which I love, on the 
grounds of cruelty and general brutality. Was it 
possible, asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero, that 
any educated man should find delight in so coarse 
a pursuit ? Always bearing in mind my own connection 
with The Fortnightly, I regarded this almost as a rising 
of a child against the father. I felt at any rate bound 
to answer Mr. Freeman in the same columns, and I 
obtained Mr. Morley's permission to do so. I wrote 
my defence of fox-hunting, and there it is. In regard 

1 1 have written various articles for it since, especially 
two on Cicero, to which \ devoted great labour. 



1 68 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to the charge of cruelty, Mr. Freeman seems to 
assert that nothing unpleasant should be done to any 
of God's creatures except for a useful purpose. The 
protection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a 
useful purpose; and therefore a dozen fur-bearing 
animals may be snared in the snow and left to starve 
to death in the wires, in order that the lady may have 
the tippet, — though a tippet of wool would serve the 
purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the congre- 
gation and healthful amusement of one or two hundred 
persons, on whose behalf a single fox may or may 
not be killed, is not a useful purpose. I think that Mr. 
Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is 
as needful and almost as necessary as food and raiment. 
The absurdity of the further charge as to the general 
brutality of the pursuit, and its consequent unfitness 
for an educated man, is to be attributed to Mr. Free- 
man's ignorance of what is really done and said in the 
hunting-field, — perhaps to his misunderstanding of 
Cicero's words. There was a rejoinder to my answer, 
and I asked for space for further remarks. I could 
have it, the editor said, if I much wished it; but he 
preferred that the subject should be closed. Of course 
I was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr. Free- 
man, — and against the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, 
would cease to exist in England. And I felt that The 
Fortnightly was hardly the place for the defence of 
the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman kindly suggested 
to me that he would be glad to publish my article in 
a little book to be put out by him condemnatory of fox- 
hunting generally. He was to have the last word and 
the first word, and that power of picking to pieces 
which he is known to use in so masterly a manner, 
without any reply from me ! This I was obliged to 



THE " FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW " 169 

decline. If he would give me the last word, as he 
would have the first, then, I told him, I should be 
proud to join him in the book. This offer did not 
however meet his views. 

It had been decided by the Board of Management, 
somewhat in opposition to my own ideas on the subject, 
that the Fortnightly Review should always contain a 
novel. It was of course natural that I should write the 
first novel, and I wrote The Belton Estate. It is similar 
in its attributes to Rachel Ray and to Miss Mackenzie. 
It is readable, and contains scenes which are true to 
life; but it has no peculiar merits, and will add nothing 
to my reputation as a novelist. I have not looked at 
it since it was published; and now turning back to it 
in my memory, I seem to remember almost less of it 
than of any book that I have written. 



CHAPTER XI 
''the claverings/' the '''pall mall gazette/' 

^'^NINA BALATKA/' and "" LINDA TRESSEL " 

The ClaveringSj which came out in 1866 and 1867, was 
the last novel which I wrote for the Cornhill; and 'it 
was for this that I received the highest rate of pay 
that was ever accorded to me. It was the same length 
as Framley Parsonage, and the price was £28'JO. 
Whether much or little, it was offered by the proprietor 
of the magazine, and was paid in a single cheque. 

In The Claverings I did not follow the habit which 
had now become very common to me, of introdu:ing 
personages whose names are already known to the 
readers of novels, and whose characters were familiar 
to myself. If I remember rightly, no one appears here 
who had appeared before or who has been allowed to 
appear since. I consider the story as a whole tc be 
good, though I am not aware that the public has ever 
corroborated that verdict. The chief character is that 
of a young woman who has married manifestly for 
money and rank, — so manifestly that she does not 
herself pretend, even while she is making the marriage, 
that she has any other reason. The man is old, dis- 
reputable, and a wornout debauchee. Then comes 
the punishment natural to the offence. When she is 
free, the man whom she had loved, and who had loved 
her, is engaged to another woman. He vacillates and 
is weak, — in which weakness is the fault of the book, 
170 



171 

as he plays the part of hero. But she is strong — 
strong in her purpose, strong in her desires, and strong 
in her consciousness that the punishment which comes 
upon her has been deserved. 

But the chief merit of The Claverings is in the 
genuine fun of some of the scenes. Humour has not 
been my forte, but I am inclined to think that the 
characters of Captain Boodle, Archie Clavering, and 
Sophie Gordeloup are humorous. Count Pateroff, the 
brother of Sophie, is also good, and disposes of the 
young hero's interference in a somewhat masterly 
manner. In The Claverings, too, there is a wife whose 
husband is a brute to her, who loses an only child — 
his heir — and who is rebuked by her lord because the 
boy dies. Her sorrow is, I think, pathetic. From 
beginning to end the story is well told. But I doubt 
now whether any one reads The Claverings. When I 
remember how many novels I have written, I have 
no right to expect that above a few of them shall 
endure even to the second year beyond publication. 
This story closed my connection with the Cornhill 
Magazine; — but not with its owner, Mr. George Smith, 
who subsequently brought out a further novel of mine 
in a separate form, and who about this time established 
the Pall Mall Gazette, to which paper I was for some 
years a contributor. 

It was in 1865 that the Pall Mall Gazette was com- 
menced, the name having been taken from a fictitious 
periodical, which was the offspring of Thackeray's 
brain. It was set on foot by the unassisted energy and 
resources of George Smith, who had succeeded by 
means of his magazine and his publishing connection 
in getting around him a society of literary men who 
sufficed, as far as literary ability went, to float the paper 



172 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

at once under favourable auspices. His two strongest 
staffs probably were " Jacob Omnium," whom I regard 
as the most forcible newspaper writer of my days, and 
Fitz-James Stephen, the most conscientious and in- 
dustrious. To them the Pall Mall Gazette owed very 
much of its early success, — and to the untiring energy 
and general ability of its proprietor. Among its other 
contributors were George Lewes, Hannay, — who, I 
think, came up from Edinburgh for employment on 
its columns, — Lord Houghton, Lord Strangford, 
Charles Merivale, Greenwood the present editor, 
Greg, myself, and very many others; — so many others, 
that I have met at a Pall Mall dinner a crowd of guests 
who would have filled the House of Commons more 
respectably than I have seen it filled even on important 
occasions. There are many who now remember — and 
no doubt when this is published there will be left some 
to remember — the great stroke of business which was 
done by the revelations of a visitor to one of the 
casual wards in London. A person had to be selected 
who would undergo the misery of a night among the 
usual occupants of a casual ward in a London poor- 
house, and who should at the same time be able to 
record what he felt and saw. The choice fell upon 
Mr. Greenwood's brother, who certainly possessed the 
courage and the powers of endurance. The descrip- 
tion, which was very well given, was, I think, chiefly 
written by the brother of the Casual himself. It had 
a great effect, which was increased by secrecy as to 
the person who encountered all the horrors of that 
night. I was mere than once assured that Lord 
Houghton was the man. I heard it asserted also that 
I myself had been the hero. At last the unknown 
one could no longer endure that his honours should 



THE PALL MALL GAZETTE I73 

be hidden, and revealed the truth, — in opposition, I 
fear, to promises to the contrary, and instigated by 
a conviction that if known he could turn his honours 
to account. In the meantime, however, that record 
of a night passed in a workhouse had done more to 
establish the sale of the journal than all the legal lore 
of Stephen, or the polemical power of Higgins, or the 
critical acumen of Lewes. 

• My work was various. I wrote much on the subject 
of the American War, on which my feelings were at 
the time very keen, — subscribing, if I remember right, 
my name to all that I wrote. I contributed also some 
sets of sketches, of which those concerning hunting 
found favour with the public. They were republished 
afterwards, and had a considerable sale, and may, I 
think, still be recommended to those who are fond 
of hunting, as being accurate in their description of 
the different classes of people who are to be met in 
the hunting-field. There was also a set of clerical 
sketches, which was considered to be of sufficient 
importance to bring down upon my head the critical 
wrath of a great dean of that period. The most ill- 
natured review that was ever written upon any work 
of mine appeared in the Contemporary Review with 
reference to these Clerical Sketches. The critic told 
me that I did not understand Greek. That charge 
has been made not unfrequently by those who have 
felt themselves strong in that pride-producing language. 
It is much to read Greek with ease, but it is not dis- 
graceful to be unable to do so. To pretend to read 
it without being able, — that is disgraceful. The critic, 
however, had been driven to wrath by my saying that 
Deans of the Church of England loved to revisit the 
glimpses of the metropolitan moon. 



174 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I also did some critical work for the Pall Mall,-^ 
as I did also for The Fortnightly. It was not to my taste, 
but was done in conformity with strict conscientious 
scruples. I read what I took in hand, and said what 
I believed to be true, — always giving to the matter 
time altogether incommensurate with the pecuniary 
result to myself. In doing this for the Pall Mall, I 
fell into great sorrow. A gentleman, whose wife was 
dear to me as if she were my own sister, was in some 
trouble as to his conduct in the public service. He 
had been blamed, as he thought unjustly, and vindicated 
himself in a pamphlet. This he handed to me one day, 
asking me to read it, and express my opinion about 
it if I found that I had an opinion. I thought the 
request injudicious, and I did not read the pamphlet. 
He met me again, and, handing me a second pamphlet, 
pressed me very hard. I promised him that I would 
read it, and that if I found myself able I would express 
myself; — but that I must say not what I wished to 
think, but what I did think. To this of course he 
assented. I then went very much out of my way to 
study the subject, — which was one requiring study. 
I found, or thought that I found, that the conduct of 
the gentleman in his office had been indiscreet; but 
that charges made against himself affecting his honour 
were baseless. This I said, emphasising much more 
strongly than was necessary the opinion which I had 
formed of his indiscretion, — as will so often be the 
case when a man has a pen in his hand. It is like a 
club or sledge-hammer, — in using which, either for 
defence or attack, a man can hardly measure the 
strength of the blows he gives. Of course there was 
offence, — and a breaking off of intercourse between 
loving friends, — and a sense of wrong received, and I 



THE ' PALL MALL GAZETTE 175 

must own, too, of wrong done. It certainly was not 
open to me to whitewash with honesty him whom I 
did not find to be white; but there was no duty incum- 
bent on me to declare what was his colour in my 
eyes, — no duty even to ascertain. But I had been 
ruffled by the persistency of the gentleman's request, 
— which should not have been made, — and I punished 
him for his wrong-doing by doing a wrong myself. 
I must add, that before he died his wife succeeded 
in bringing us together. 

In the early days of the paper, the proprietor, who 
at that time acted also as chief editor, asked me to 
undertake a duty, — of which the agony would indeed 
at no one moment have been so sharp as that endured 
in the casual ward, but might have been prolonged 
until human nature sank under it. He suggested to 
me that I should during an entire season attend the 
May meetings in Exeter Hall, and give a graphic and, 
if possible, amusing description of the proceedings. 
I did attend one, — which lasted three hours, — and wrote 
a paper which I think was called A Zulu in Search of 
a Religion. But when the meeting was over I went 
to that spirited proprietor, and begged him to impose 
upon me some task more equal to my strength. Not 
even on behalf of the Pall Mall Gazette, which was 
very dear to me, could I go through a second May 
meeting, — much less endure a season of such mar- 
tyrdom. 

I have to acknowledge that I found myself unfit for 
work on a newspaper. I had not taken to it early 
enough in life to learn its ways and bear its trammels. 
I was fidgety v^hen any work was altered in accordance 
with the judgment of the editor, who, of course, was 
responsible for what appeared. I wanted to select my 



176 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

own subjects, — not to have them selected for me; 
to write when I pleased, — and not when it suited others. 
As a permanent member of the staff I was of no use, 
and after two or three years I dropped out of the work. 
From the commencement of my success as a writer, 
which I date from the beginning of the Cornhill 
Magazine, I had always felt an injustice in literary 
affairs which had never afflicted me or even suggested 
itself to me while I was unsuccessful. It seemed to 
me that a name once earned carried with it too much 
favour. I indeed had never reached a height to which 
praise was awarded as a matter of course; but there 
were others who sat on higher seats to whom the 
critics brought unmeasured incense and adulation, even 
when they wrote, as they sometimes did write, trash 
which from a beginner would not have been thought 
worthy of the slightest notice. I hope no one will 
think that in saying this I am actuated by jealousy 
of others. Though I never reached that height, still 
I had so far progressed that that which I wrote was 
received with too much favour. The injustice which 
struck me did not consist in that which was withheld 
from me, but in that which was given to me. I felt 
that aspirants coming up below me might do work as 
good as mine, and probably much better work, and yet 
fail to have it appreciated. In order to test this, I de- 
termined to be such an aspirant myself, and to begin 
a course of novels anonymously, in order that I might 
see whether I could obtain a second identity, — 
whether as I had made one mark by such literary 
ability as I possessed, I might succeed in doing so again. 
In 1865 I began a short tale called Nina Balatka, which 
in 1866 was published anonymously in Blackwood's 
Magazine. In 1867 this was followed by another of 



177 

the same length, called Linda Trcssel. I will speak of 
them together, as they are of the same nature and of 
nearly equal merit. Mr. Blackwood, who himself read 
the MS. of Nina Balatka, expressed an opinion that 
it would not from its style be discovered to have 
been written by me; — but it was discovered by Mr. 
Hutton of the Spectator, who found the repeated 
use of some special phrase which had rested upon 
his ear too frequently when reading for the purpose 
of criticism other works of mine. He declared in 
his paper that Nina Balatka was by me, showing 
I think more sagacity than good nature. I ought 
not, however, to complain of him, as of all the 
critics of my work he has been the most observant, 
and generally the most eulogistic. Nina Balatka never 
rose sufficiently high in reputation to make its detection 
a matter of any importance. Once or twice I heard 
the story mentioned by readers who did not know me 
to be the author, and always with praise; but it had 
no real success. The same may be said of Linda 
Tressel. Blackwood, who of course knew the author, 
was willing to publish them, trusting that works by 
an experienced writer would make their way, even 
without the writer's name, and he was willing to pay 
me for them, perhaps half what they would have 
fetched with my name. But he did not find the 
speculation answer, and declined a third attempt, 
though a third such tale was written for him. 

Nevertheless I am sure that the two stories are 
good. Perhaps the first is somewhat the better, as 
being the less lachrymose. They were both written 
very quickly, but with a considerable amount of labour ; 
and both were written immediately after visits to the 
towns in which the scenes are laid, — Prague, mainly. 



178 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and Nuremberg. Of course I had endeavoured to 
change not only my manner of language, but my 
manner of story-telling also; and in this, pace Mr. 
Hutton, I think that I was successful. English life 
in them there was none. There was more of romance 
proper than had been usual with me. And I made an 
attempt at local colouring, at descriptions of scenes 
and places, which has not been usual with me. In 
all this I am confident that I was in a measure success- 
ful. In the loves, and fears, and hatreds, both of 
Nina and of Linda, there is much that is pathetic. 
Prague is Prague, and Nuremberg is Nuremberg. I 
know that the stories are good, but they missed the 
object with which they had been written. Of course 
there is not in this any evidence that I might not have 
succeeded a second time as I succeeded before, had I 
gone on with the same dogged perseverance. Mr. 
Blackwood, had I still further reduced my price, would 
probably have continued the experiment. Another ten 
years of unpaid unflagging labour might have built 
up a second reputation. But this at any rate did seem 
clear to me, that with all the increased advantages 
which practice in my art must have given me, I could 
not induce English readers to read what I gave to them, 
unless I gave it with my name. 

I do not wish to have it supposed from this that I 
quarrel with public judgment in affairs of literature. 
It is a matter of course that in all things the public 
should trust to established reputation. It is as natural 
that a novel reader wanting novels should send to 
a library for those by George Eliot or Wilkie Collins, 
as that a lady when she wants a pie for a picnic should 
go to Fortnum & Mason. Fortnum & Mason can 
only make themselves Fortnum & Mason by dint of 






NINA BALATKA 179 

time and good pies combined. If Titian were to send 
us a portrait from the other world, as certain dead 
poets send their poetry by means of a medium, it 
would be some time before the art critic of the Times 
would discover its value. We may sneer at the want 
of judgment thus displayed, but such slowness of 
judgment is human and has always existed. I say all 
this here because my thoughts on the matter have 
forced upon me the conviction that very much consid- 
eration is due to the bitter feelings of disappointed 
authors. 

We who have succeeded are so apt to tell new 
aspirants not to aspire, because the thing to be done 
may probably be beyond their reach. "My dear young 
lady, had you not better stay at home and darn your 
stockings ? " " As, sir, you have asked for my candid 
opinion, I can only counsel you to try some other work 
of life which may be better suited to your abilities." 
What old-established successful author has not said 
such words as these to humble aspirants for critical 
advice, till they have become almost formulas? No 
doubt there is cruelty in such answers; but the man 
who makes them has considered the matter within 
himself, and has resolved that such cruelty is the best 
mercy. No doubt the chances against literary aspirants 
are very great. It is so easy to aspire, — and to begin ! 
A man cannot make a watch or a shoe without a 
variety of tools and many materials. He must also 
have learned much. But any young lady can write 
a book who has a sufficiency of pens and paper. It can 
be done anywhere; in any clothes — which is a great 
thing; at any hours — to which happy accident in 
literature I owe my success. And the success, when 
achieved, is so pleasant ! The aspirants, of course. 



l8o AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

are very many; and the experienced councillor, when 
asked for his candid judgment as to this or that effort, 
knows that among every hundred efforts there will 
be ninety-nine failures. Then the answer is so ready: 
*' My dear young lady, do darn your stockings ; it will 
be for the best." Or perhaps, less tenderly, to the 
male aspirant : " You must earn some money, you say. 
Don't you think that a stool in a counting-house might 
be better ? " The advice will probably be good advice, 
— probably, no doubt, as may be proved by the terrible 
majority of failures. But who is to be sure that he 
is not expelling an angel from the heaven to which, 
if less roughly treated, he would soar, — that he is not 
dooming some Milton to be mute and inglorious, who, 
but for such cruel ill-judgment, would become vocal 
to all ages? 

The answer to all this seems to be ready enough. 
The jud'gment, whether cruel or tender, should not be 
ill- judgment. He who consents to sit as judge should 
have capacity for judging. But in this matter no 
accuracy of judgment is possible. It may be that the 
matter subjected to the critic is so bad or so good as 
to make an assured answer possible. " You, at any 
rate, cannot make this your vocation ; " or " You, at 
any rate, can succeed, if you will try." But cases as 
to which such certainty can be expressed are rare. 
The critic who wrote the article on the early verses 
of Lord Byron, which produced the English Bards 
and Scotch Reviewers, was justified in his criticism 
by the merits of the Hours of Idleness. The lines 
had nevertheless been written by that Lord Byron who 
became our Byron. In a little satire called The 
Biliad, which, I think, nobody knows, are the following 
well-expressed lines : — 



i 



i8i 

" When Payne Knight's Taste was issued to the town, 
A few Greek verses in the text set down 
Were torn to pieces, mangled into hash, 
Doomed to the flames as execrable trash, — 
In short, were butchered rather than dissected. 
And several false quantities detected, — 
Till, when the smoke had vanished fi'om the cinders- 
'Twas just discovered that — the lines were Pindar's f* 

There can be no assurance against cases such as these; 
and yet we are so free with our advice, always bidding 
the young aspirant to desist. 

There is perhaps no career or life so charming as 
that of a successful man of letters. Those little 
unthought of advantages which I just now named are 
in themselves attractive. If you like the town, live 
in the town, and do your work there; if you like the 
country, choose the country. It may be done on the 
top of a mountain or in the bottom of a pit. It is 
compatible with the rolling of the sea and the motion 
of a railway. The clergyman, the lawyer, the doctor, 
the member of Parliament, the clerk in a public office, 
the tradesman, and even his assistant in the shop, must 
dress in accordance with certain fixed laws; but the 
author need sacrifice to no grace, hardly even to 
Propriety. He is subject to no bonds such as those 
which bind other men. Who else is free from all 
shackle as to hours? The judge must sit at ten, and 
the attorney-general, who is making his £20,000 a 
year, must be there with his bag. The Prime Minister 
must be in his place on that weary front bench shortly 
after prayers, and must sit there, either asleep or 

awake, even though or should be addressing 

the House. During all that Sunday which he maintains 
should be a day of rest, the active clergyman toils 



l82 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

like a galley-slave. The actor, when eight o'clock 
comes, is bound to his footlights. The Civil Service 
clerk must sit there from ten till four, — unless his 
office be fashionable, when twelve to six is just as 
heavy on him. The author may do his work at five 
in the morning when he is fresh from his bed, or at 
three, in the morning before he goes there. And the 
author wants no capital, and encounters no risks. 
When once he is afloat, the publisher finds all that; — 
and indeed, unless he be rash, finds it whether he be 
afloat or not. But it is in the consideration which he 
enjoys that the successful author finds his richest 
reward. He is, if not of equal rank, yet of equal 
standing with the highest; and if he be open to the 
amenities of society, may choose his own circles. He 
without money can enter doors which are closed against 
almost all but him and the wealthy. I have often 
heard it said that in this country the man of letters 
is not recognised. I believe the meaning of this to 
be that men of letters are not often invited to be 
knights and baronets. I do not think that they wish 
it; — and if they had it they would, as a body, lose 
much more than they would gain. I do not at all 
desire to have letters put after my name, or to be called 
Sir Anthony, but if my friends Tom Hughes and 
Charles Reade became Sir Thomas and Sir Charles,, 
I do not know how I might feel, — or how my wife 
might feel, if we were left unbedecked. As it is, 
the man of letters who would be selected for titular 
honour, if such bestowal of honours were customary,, 
receives from the general respect of those around him. 
a much more pleasant recognition of his worth. 

If this be so, — if it be true that the career of the 
successful literary man be thus pleasant^ — it is not 



i83 

wonderful that many should attempt to win the prize. 
But how is a man to know whether or not he has 
within him the qualities necessary for such a career? 
He makes an attempt, and fails; repeats his attempt, 
and fails again ! So many have succeeded at last who 
have failed more than once or twice! Who will tell 
him the truth as to himself? Who has power to find 
out that truth? The hard man sends him off without a 
scruple to that office-stool; the .soft man assures him 
that there is much merit in his MS. 

Oh, my young aspirant, — if ever such a one should 
read these pages, — be sure that no one can tell you ! 
To do so it would be necessary not only to know what 
there is now within you, but also to foresee what time 
will produce there. This, however, I think may be 
said to you, without any doubt as to the wisdom of the 
counsel given, that if it be necessary for you to live 
by your work, do not begin by trusting to literature. 
Take the stool in the office as recommended to you by 
the hard man; and then, in such leisure hours as may 
belong to you, let the praise which has come from 
the lips of that soft man induce you to persevere in 
your literary attempts. Should you fail, then your 
failure will not be fatal, — and what better could you 
have done with the leisure hours had you not so failed ? 
Such double toil, you will say, is severe. Yes, but 
if you want this thing, you must submit to severe toil. 

Sometime before this I had become one of the 
Committee appointed for the distribution of the moneys 
of the Royal Literary Fund, and in that capacity I 
heard and saw much of the sufferings of authors. I 
may in a future chapter speak further of this Institu- 
tion, which I regard with great affection, and in 
reference to which I should be glad to record certain 



184 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

convictions of my own; but I allude to it now, because 
the experience I have acquired in being active in its 
cause forbids me to advise any young man or woman 
to enter boldly on a literary career in search of bread. 
I know how utterly I should have failed myself had 
my bread not been earned elsewhere while I was 
making my efforts. During ten years of work, which 
I commenced with some aid from the fact that others 
of my family were in the same profession, I did not 
earn enough to buy me the pens, ink, and paper which 
I was using; and then when, with all my experience 
in my art, I began again as from a new springing 
point, I should have failed again unless again I could 
have given years to the task. Of course there have 
been many who have done better than I, — many whose 
powers have been infinitely greater. But then, too, 
I have seen the failure of many who were greater. 

The career, when success has been achieved, is 
certainly very pleasant; but the agonies which are 
endured in the search for that success are often terrible. 
And the author's poverty is, I think, harder to be borne 
than any other poverty. The man, whether rightly 
or wrongly, feels that the world is using him with 
extreme injustice. The more absolutely he fails, the 
higher, it is probable, he will reckon his own merits; 
and the keener will be the sense of injury in that he 
whose work is of so high a nature cannot get bread, 
while they whose tasks are mean are lapped in luxury. 
" I, with my well-filled mind, with my clear intellect, 
with all my gifts, cannot earn a poor crown a day, 
while that fool, who simpers in a little room behind a 
shop, makes his thousands every year." The very 
charity, to which he too often is driven, is bitterer 
to him than to others. While he takes it he almost 



" LINDA TRESSEL " I85 

spurns the hand that gives it to him, and every fibre 
of his heart within him is bleeding with a sense of 
injury. 

The career, when successful, is pleasant enough 
certainly; but when unsuccessful, it is of all careers 
the most agonising. 



CHAPTER XII 

ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 

It is nearly twenty years since I proposed to myself 
to write a history of English prose fiction. I shall 
never do it now, but the subject is so good a one that 
I recommend it heartily to some man of letters, who 
shall at the same time be indefatigable and light- 
handed. I acknowledge that I broke down in the task, 
because I could not endure the labour in addition to 
the other labours of my life. Though the book might 
be charming, the work was very much the reverse. It 
came to have a terrible aspect to me, as did that 
proposition that I should sit out all the May meetings 
of a season. According to my plan of such a history 
it would be necessary to read an infinity of novels, and 
not only to read them, but so to read them as to point 
out the excellences of those which are most excellent, 
and to explain the defects of those which, though 
defective, had still reached sufficient reputation to 
make them worthy of notice. I did read many after 
this fashion, — and here and there I have the criticisms 
which I wrote. In regard to many, they were written 
on some blank page within the book. I have not, 
however, even a list of the books so criticised. I think 
that the Arcadia was the first, and Ivanhoe the last. 
My plan, as I settled it at last, had been to begin with 
Robinson Crusoe, which is the earliest really popular 

i86 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 187 

novel which we have in our language, and to continue 
the review so as to include the works of all English 
novelists of reputation, except those who might still 
be living when my task should be completed. But 
when Dickens and Bulwer died, my spirit flagged, and 
that which I had already found to be very difficult had 
become almost impossible to me at my then period of 
life. 

I began my own studies on the subject with works 
much earlier than Robinson Crusoe, and made my way 
through a variety of novels which were necessary for 
my purpose, but which in the reading gave me no 
pleasure whatever. I never worked harder than at the 
Arcadia, or read more detestable trash than the stories 
written by Mrs. Aphra Behn; but these two were 
necessary to my purpose, which was not only to give 
an estimate of the novels as I found them, but to 
describe how it had come to pass that the English 
novels of the present day have become what they are, 
to point out the effects which they have produced, and 
to inquire whether their great popularity has on the 
whole done good or evil to the people who read them. 
I still think that the book is one well worthy to be 
written. 

I intended to write that book to vindicate my own 
profession as a novelist, and also to vindicate that 
public taste in literature which has created and 
nourished the profession which I follow. And I was 
stirred up to make such an attempt by a conviction 
that there still exists among us Englishmen a prejudice 
in respect to novels which might, perhaps, be lessened 
by such a work. This prejudice is not against the 
reading of novels, as is proved by their general accep- 
tance among us. But it exists strongly in reference to 



1 88 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the appreciation in which they are professed to be held; 
and it robs them of much of that high character which 
they may claim to have earned by their grace, their 
honesty, and good teaching. 

No man can work long at any trade without being 
brought to consider much, whether that which he is 
daily doing tends to evil or to good. I have written 
many novels, and have known many writers of novels, 
and I can assert that such thoughts have been strong 
with them and with myself. But in acknowledging that 
these writers have received from the public a full 
measure of credit for such genius, ingenuity, or per- 
severance as each may have displayed, I feel that there 
is still wanting to them a just appreciation of the excel- 
lence of their calling, and a general understanding of 
the high nature of the work which they perform. 

By the common consent of all mankind who have 
read, poetry takes the highest place in literature. That 
nobility of expression, and all but divine grace of words, 
which she is bound to attain before she can make her 
footing good, is not compatible with prose. Indeed 
it is that which turns prose into poetry. When that 
has been in truth achieved, the reader knows that the 
writer has soared above the earth, and can teach his 
lessons somewhat as a god might teach. He who sits 
down to write his tale in prose makes no such attempt, 
nor does he dream that the poet's honour is within his 
reach; — but his teaching is of the same nature, and his 
lessons all tend to the same end. By either, false sen- 
timents may be fostered; false notions of humanity 
may be engendered ; false honour, false love, false wor- 
ship may be created; by either, vice instead of virtue 
may be taught. But by each, equally, may true honour, 
true love, true worship, and true humanity be incul- 



ON" NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 189 

cated; and that will be the greatest teacher who will 
spread such truth the widest. But at present, much as 
novels, as novels, are bought and read, there exists still 
an idea, a feeling which is very prevalent, that novels 
at their best are but innocent. Young men and women, 
— and old men and women too, — read more of them 
than of poetry, because such reading is easier than the 
reading of poetry; but they read them, — as men eat 
pastry after dinner, — not without some inward convic- 
tion that the taste is vain if not vicious. I take upon 
myself to say that it is neither vicious nor vain. 

But all writers of fiction who have desired to think 
well of their own work, will probably have had doubts 
on their minds before they have arrived at this con- 
clusion. Thinking much of my own daily labour and 
of its nature, I felt myself at first to be much afflicted 
and then to be deeply grieved by the opinion expressed 
by wise and thinking men as to the work done by novel- 
ists. But when, by degrees, I dared to examine and 
sift the sayings of such men, I found them to be some- 
times silly and often arrogant. I began to inquire 
what had been the nature of English novels since they 
first became common in our own language, and to be 
desirous of ascertaining whether they had done harm 
or good. I could well remember that, in my own young 
days, they had not taken that undisputed possession of 
drawing-rooms which they now hold. Fifty years ago, 
when George IV. was king, they were not indeed 
treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them in the 
preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders. Pere- 
grine Pickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord 
Ainsworth put away under the sofa. But the families 
in which an unrestricted permission was given for the 
reading of novels were very few, and from many they 



190 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were altogether banished. The high poetic genius and 
correct morality of Walter Scott had not altogether 
succeeded in making men and women understand that 
lessons which were good in poetry could not be bad in 
prose. I remember that in those days an embargo was 
laid upon novel-reading as a pursuit, which was to the 
novelist a much heavier tax than that want of full 
appreciation of which I now complain. 

There is, we all know, no such embargo now. May 
we not say that people of an age to read have got too 
much power into their own hands to endure any very 
complete embargo? Novels are read right and left, 
above stairs and below, in town houses and in coun- 
try parsonages, by young countesses and by farmers' 
daughters, by old lawyers and by young students. It 
has not only come to pass that a special provision of 
them has to be made for the godly, but that the pro- 
vision so made must now include books which a few 
years since the godly would have thought to be pro- 
fane. It was this necessity which, a few years since, 
induced the editor of Good Words to apply to me for a 
novel, — which, indeed, when supplied was rejected, but 
which now, probably, owing to further change in the 
same direction, would have been accepted. 

If such be the case — if the extension of novel-reading 
be so wide as I have described it — then very much good 
or harm must be done by novels. The amusement of 
the time can hardly be the only result of any book that 
is read, and certainly not so with a novel, which appeals 
especially to the imagination, and solicits the sympathy 
of the young. A vast proportion of the teaching of 
the day, — greater probably than many of us have 
acknowledged to ourselves, — comes from these books, 
which are in the hands of all readers. It is from them 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM I9I 

that girls learn what is expected from them, and what 
they are to expect when lovers come; and also from 
them that young men unconsciously learn what are, or 
should be, or may be, the charms of love, — though I 
fancy that few young men will think so little of their 
natural instincts and powers as to believe that I am 
right in saying so. Many other lessons also are taught. 
In these times, when the desire to be honest is pressed 
so hard, is so violently assaulted by the ambition to be 
great; in which riches are the easiest road to great- 
ness; when the temptations to which men are subjected 
dull their eyes to the perfected iniquities of others; 
when it is so hard for a man to decide vigorously that 
the pitch, which so many are handling, will defile him 
if it be touched; — men's conduct will be actuated much 
by that which is from day to day depicted to them as 
leading to glorious or inglorious results. The woman 
who is described as having obtained all that the world 
holds to be precious, by lavishing her charms and her 
caresses unworthily and heartlessly, will induce other 
women to do the same with theirs, — as will she who is 
made interesting by exhibitions of bold passion teach 
others to be spuriously passionate. The young man who 
in a novel becomes a hero, perhaps a Member of Par- 
liament, and almost a Prime Minister, by trickery, 
falsehood, and flash cleverness, will have many fol- 
lowers, whose attempts to rise in the world ought to lie 
heavily on the conscience of the novelists who create 
fictitious Cagliostros. There are Jack Sheppards other 
than those who break into houses and out of prisons, — 
Macheaths, who deserve the gallows more than Gay's 
hero. 

Thinking of all this, as a novelist surely must do, 
• — as I certainly have done through my whole career, — 



192 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

it becomes to him a matter of deep conscience how he 
shall handle those characters by whose words and doings 
he hopes to interest his readers. It will very frequently 
be the case that he will be tempted to sacrifice some- 
thing for effect, to say a word or two here, or to draw 
a picture there, for which he feels that he has the 
power, and which when spoken or drawn would be 
alluring. The regions of absolute vice are foul and 
odious. The savour of them, till custom has hardened 
the palate and the nose, is disgusting. In these he will 
hardly tread. But there are outskirts on these regions, 
on which sweet-smelling flowers seem to grow, and 
grass to be green. It is in these border-lands that the 
danger lies. The novelist may not be dull. If he com- 
mit that fault he can do neither harm nor good. He 
must please, and the flowers and the grass in these 
neutral territories sometimes seem to give him so easy 
an opportunity of pleasing ! 

The writer of stories must please, or he will be noth- 
ing. And he must teach whether he wish to teach or 
no. How shall he teach lessons of virtue and at the 
same time make himself a delight to his readers? That 
sermons are not in themselves often thought to be agree- 
able we all know. Nor are disquisitions on moral phi- 
losophy supposed to be pleasant reading for our idle 
hours. But the novelist, if he have a conscience, must 
preach his sermons with the same purpose as the 
clergyman, and must have his own system of ethics. If 
he can do this efficiently, if he can make virtue allur- 
ing and vice ugly, while he charms his readers instead 
of wearying them, then I think Mr. Carlyle need not 
call him distressed, nor talk of that long ear of fiction, 
nor question whether he be or not the most foolish of 
existing mortals. 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM I93 

I think that many have done so; so many that we 
English novelists may boast as a class that has been 
the general result of our own work. Looking back to 
the past generation, I may say with certainty that such 
was the operation of the novels of Miss Edgeworth, 
Miss Austen, and Walter Scott. Coming down to my 
own times, I find such to have been the teaching of 
Thackeray, of Dickens, and of George Eliot. Speak- 
ing, as I shall speak to any who may read these words, 
with that absence of self-personality which the dead 
may claim, I will boast that such has been the result 
of my own writing. Can any one by search through the 
works of the six great English novelists I have named, 
find a scene, a passage, or a word that would teach a 
girl to be immodest, or a man to be dishonest? When 
men in their pages have been described as dishonest and 
women as immodest, have they not ever been punished? 
It is not for the novelist to say, baldly and simply: 
" Because you lied here, or were heartless there, because 
you Lydia Bennet forgot the lessons of your honest 
home, or you Earl Leicester were false through your 
ambition, or you Beatrix loved too well the glitter of 
the world, therefore you shall be scourged with scourges 
either in this world or in the next ; " but it is for him 
to show, as he carries on his tale, that his Lydia, or his 
Leicester, or his Beatrix, will be dishonoured in the 
estimation of all readers by his or her vices. Let a 
woman be drawn clever, beautiful, attractive, — so as 
to make men love her, and women almost envy her, — 
and let her be made also heartless, unfeminine, and 
ambitious of evil grandeur, as was Beatrix, what a 
danger is there not in such a character ! To the 
novelist who shall handle it, what peril of doing harm ! 
But if at last it have been so handled that every girl 



194 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

who reads of Beatrix shall say: " Oh ! not like that;— 
let me not be like that ! " and that every youth shall 
say : " Let me not have such a one as that to press my 
bosom, anything rather than that ! " — then will not the 
novelist have preached his sermon as perhaps no clergy- 
man can preach it? 

Very much of a novelist's work must appertain to 
the intercourse between young men and young women. 
It is admitted that a novel can hardly be made inter- 
esting or successful without love. Some few might be 
named, but even in those the attempt breaks down, and 
the softness of love is found to be necessary to complete 
the story. Pickwick has been named as an exception to 
the rule, but even in Pickwick there are three or four 
sets of lovers, whose little amatory longings give a soft- 
ness to the work. I tried it once with Miss Mackenzie, 
but I had to make her fall in love at last. In this 
frequent allusion to the passion which most stirs the 
imagination of the young, there must be danger. Of 
that the writer of fiction is probably well aware. Then 
the question has to be asked, whether the danger may 
not be so averted that good may be the result, — and to 
be answered. 

In one respect the necessity of dealing with love is 
advantageous, — advantageous from the very circum- 
stance which has made love necessary to all novelists. 
It is necessary because the passion is one which inter- 
ests or has interested all. Every one feels it, has felt it, 
or expects to feel it, — or else rejects it with an e'agerness 
which still perpetuates the interest. If the novelist, 
therefore, can so handle the subject as to do good by 
his handling, as to teach wholesome lessons in regard 
to love, the good which he does will be very wide. If I 
can teach politicians that they can do their business 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM I95 

better by truth than by falsehood, I do a great service; 
but it is done to a limited number of persons. But if I 
can make young men and women believe that truth in 
love v^ill make them happy, then, if my writings be 
popular, I shall have a very large class of pupils. No 
doubt the cause for that fear which did exist as to 
novels arose from an idea that the matter of love would 
be treated in an inflammatory and generally unwhole- 
some manner. " Madam," says Sir Anthony in the 
play, " a circulating library in a town is an evergreen 
tree of diabolical knowledge. It blossoms through the 
year; and depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who 
are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the 
fruit at last." Sir Anthony was no doubt right. But 
he takes it for granted that the longing for the fruit is 
an evil. The novelist who writes of love thinks dif- 
ferently, and thinks that the honest love of an honest 
man is a treasure which a good girl may fairly hope to 
win, — and that if she can be taught to wish only for 
that, she will have been taught to entertain only whole- 
some wishes. 

I can easily believe that a girl should be taught to 
wish to love by reading how Laura Bell loved Penden- 
nis. Pendennis was not in truth a very worthy man, 
nor did he make a very good husband; but the girl's 
love was so beautiful, and the wife's love when she 
became a wife so womanlike, and at the same time so 
sweet, so unselfish, so wifely, so worshipful, — in the 
sense in which wives are told that they ought to wor- 
ship their husbands, — that I cannot believe that any 
girl can be injured, or even not benefited, by reading of 
Laura's love. 

There once used to be many who thought, and prob- 
ably there still are some, even here in England, who 



196 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

think that a girl should hear nothing of love till the 
time come in which she is to be married. That, no 
doubt, was the opinion of Sir Anthony Absolute and of 
Mrs. Malaprop. But I am hardly disposed to believe 
that the old system was more favourable than ours to 
the purity of manners. Lydia Languish, though she 
was constrained by fear of her aunt to hide the book, 
yet had Peregrine Pickle in her collection. While 
human nature talks of love so forcibly it can hardly 
serve our turn to be silent on the subject. " Naturam 
expellas furca, tamen usque recurret." There are 
countries in which it has been in accordance with the 
manners of the upper classes that the girl should be 
brought to marry the man almost out of the nursery — 
or rather perhaps out of the convent — without having 
enjoyed that freedom of thought which the reading of 
novels and of poetry will certainly produce; but I do 
not know that the marriages so made have been thought 
to be happier than our own. 

Among English novels of the present day, and among 
English novelists, a great division is made. There are 
sensational novels and anti-sensational, sensational 
novelists and anti-sensational, sensational readers and 
anti-sensational. The novelists who are considered to 
be anti-sensational are generally called realistic. I am 
realistic. My friend Wilkie Collins is generally sup- 
posed to be sensational The readers who prefer the 
one are supposed to take delight in the elucidation of 
character. Those who hold by the other are charmed 
by the continuation and gradual development of a plot. 
All this is, I think, a mistake, — which mistake arises 
from the inability of the imperfect artist to be at the 
same time realistic and sensational. A good novel 
should be both, and both in the highest degree. If a 



ON" NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM I97 

novel fail In either, there is a failure in art. Let those 
readers who believe that they do not like sensational 
scenes in novels think of some of those passages from 
our great novelists which have charmed them most: — 
of Rebecca in the castle with Ivanhoe; of Burley in the 
cave with Morton; of the mad lady tearing the veil of 
the expectant bride, in Jane Eyre; of Lady Castlewood 
as, in her indignation, she explains to the Duke of 
Hamilton Henry Esmond's right to be present at the 
marriage of his Grace with Beatrix; — may I add, of 
Lady Mason, as she makes her confession at the feet of 
Sir Peregrine Orme? Will any one say that the authors 
of these passages have sinned in being over-sensational ? 
No doubt, a string of horrible incidents, bound together 
without truth in detail, and told as affecting personages 
without character, — wooden blocks, who cannot make 
themselves known to the reader as men and womsn, — 
does not instruct or amuse, or even fill the mind with 
awe. Horrors heaped upon horrors, and which are hor- 
rors only in themselves, and not as touching any 
recognised and known person, are not tragic, and soon 
cease even to horrify. And such would-be tragic ele- 
ments of a story may be increased without end, and 
without difficulty. I may tell you of a woman murdered, 
— murdered in the same street with you, in the next 
house, — that she was a wife murdered by her husband, 
— a bride not yet a week a wife. I may add to it for 
ever. I may say that the murderer roasted her alive. 
There is no end to it. I may declare that a former wife 
was treated with equal barbarity; and may assert that, 
as the murderer was led away to execution, he declared 
his only sorrow, his only regret to be, that he could not 
live to treat a third wife after the same fashion. There 
is nothing so easy as the creation and the cumu- 



198 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

lation of fearful incidents after this fashion. If 
such creation and cumulation be the beginning and the 
end of the novelist's work, — and novels have been 
written which seem to be without other attractions, — ■ 
nothing can be more dull or more useless. But not on 
that account are we averse to tragedy in prose fiction. 
As in poetry, so in prose, he who can deal adequately 
with tragic elements is a greater artist and reaches a 
higher aim than the writer whose efforts never carry 
him above the mild walks of everyday life. The Bride 
of Lammermoor is a tragedy throughout, in spite of its 
comic elements. The life of Lady Castlewood, of whom 
I have spoken, is a tragedy. Rochester's wretched 
thraldom to his mad wife, in Jane Eyre, is a tragedy. 
But these stories charm us not simply because they are 
tragic, but because we feel that men and women 
with flesh and blood, creatures with whom we can 
sympathise, are struggling amidst their woes. It all 
lies in that. No novel is anything, for the purposes 
either of comedy or tragedy, unless the reader can 
sympathise with the characters whose names he finds 
upon the pages. Let an author so tell his tale as to 
touch his reader's heart and draw his tears, and he has, 
so far, done his work well. Truth let there be, — truth 
of description, truth of character, human truth as to 
men and women. If there be such truth, I do not 
know that a novel can be too sensational. 

I did intend when I meditated that history of English 
fiction to include within its pages some rules for the 
writing of novels ; — or I might perhaps say, with more 
modesty, to offer some advice on the art to such tyros 
in it as might be willing to take advantage of the 
experience of an old hand. But the matter would, I 
fear, be too long for this episode, and I am not sure that 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM I99 

I have as yet got the rules quite settled in my own 
mind. I will, however, say a few words on one or 
two points which my own practice has pointed out 
to me. 

I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when 
he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, not 
because he has to tell a story, but because he has a 
story to tell. The novelist's first novel will generally 
have sprung from the right cause. Some series of 
events, or some development of character, will have 
presented itself to his imagination, — and this he feels 
so strongly that he thinks he can present his picture in 
strong and agreeable language to others. He sits down 
and tells his story because he has a story to tell; as 
you, my friend, when you have heard something which 
has at once tickled your fancy or moved your pathos, 
will hurry to tell it to the first person you meet. But 
when that first novel has been received graciously by 
the public and has made for itself a success, then the 
writer naturally feeling that the writing of novels is 
within his grasp, looks about for something to tell in 
another. He cudgels his brains, not always success- 
fully, and sits down to write, not because he has some- 
thing which he burns to tell, but because he feels it to 
be incumbent on him to be telling something. As you, 
my friend, if you are very successful in the telling of 
that first story, will become ambitious of further story- 
telling, and will look out for anecdotes, — in the narra- 
tion of which you will not improbably sometimes dis- 
tress your audience. 

So it has been with many novelists, who, after some 
good work, perhaps after very much good work, have 
distressed their audience because they have gone on 
with their work till their work has become simply a 



200 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

trade with them. Need I make a list of such, seeing 
that it would contain the names of those who have been 
greatest in the art of British novel-writing? They have 
at last become weary of that portion of a novelist's 
work which is of all the most essential to success. That 
a man as he grows old should feel the labour of writ- 
ing to be a fatigue is natural enough. But a man to 
whom writing has become a habit may write well 
though he be fatigued. But the weary novelist refuses 
any longer to give his mind to that work of observa- 
tion and reception from which has come his power, 
without which work his power cannot be continued, — 
which work should be going on not only when he is at 
his desk, but in all his walks abroad, in all his move- 
ments through the world, in all his intercourse with his 
fellow-creatures. He has become a noveHst, as another 
has become a poet, because he has in those walks 
abroad, unconsciously for the most part, been drawing 
in matter from all that he has seen and heard. But 
this has not been done without labour, even when the 
labour has been unconscious. Then there comes a 
time when he shuts his eyes and shuts his ears. When 
we talk of memory fading as age comes on, it is such 
shutting of eyes and ears that we mean. The things 
around cease to interest us, and we cannot exercise our 
minds upon them. To the novelist thus wearied there 
comes the demand for further novels. He does not 
know his own defect, and even if he did he does not 
wish to abandon his own profession. He still writes; 
but he writes because he has to tell a story, not because 
he has a story to tell. What reader of novels has not 
felt the " woodenness " of this mode of telling? The 
characters do not live and move, but are cut out of 
blocks and are propped against the wall. The incidents 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 201 

are arranged In certain lines — the arrangement being 
as palpable to the reader as it has been to the writer — • 
but do not follow each other as results naturally de- 
manded by previous action. The reader can never feel 
— as he ought to feel — that only for that flame of the 
eye, only for that angry word, only for that moment of 
weakness, all might have been different. The course of 
the tale is one piece of stiff mechanism, in which there 
is no room for a doubt. 

These, it may be said, are reflections which I, being 
an old novelist, might make useful to myself for dis- 
continuing my work, but can hardly be needed by those 
tyros of whom I have spoken. That they are applica- 
ble to myself I readily admit, but I also find that they 
apply to many beginners. Some of us who are old fail 
at last because we are old. It would be well that each 
of us should say to himself, 

** Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne 
Peccet ad extremum ridendus." 

But many young fail also, because they endeavour 
to tell stories when they have none to tell. And this 
comes from idleness rather than from innate incapacity. 
The mind has not been sufficiently at work when the 
tale has been commenced, nor is it kept sufficiently at 
work as the tale is continued. I have never troubled 
myself much about the construction of plots, and am 
not now insisting specially on thoroughness in a branch 
of work in which I myself have not been very thorough. 
I am not sure that the construction of a perfected plot 
has been at any period within my power. But the 
novelist has other aims than the elucidation of his plot. 
He desires to make his readers so intimately acquainted 



202 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

with his characters that the creatures of his brain should 
be to them speaking, moving, living, human creatures. 
This he can never do unless he know those fictitious 
personages himself, and he can never know them 
unless he can live with them in the full reality of estab- 
lished intimacy. They must be with him as he lies 
down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. He 
must learn to hate them and to love them. He must 
argue with them, quarrel with them, forgive them, and 
even submit to them. He must know of them whether 
they be cold-blooded or passionate, whether true or 
false, and how far true, and how far false. The depth 
and the breadth, and the narrowness and the shallow- 
ness of each should be clear to him. And, as here, in 
our outer world, we know that men and women change, 
— become worse or better as temptation or conscience 
may guide them, — so should these creations of his 
change, and every change should be noted by him. On 
the last day of each month recorded, every person in 
his novel should be a month older than on the first. If 
the would-be novelist have aptitudes that way, all this 
will come to him without much struggling; — but if 
it do not come, I think he can only make novels of 
wood. 

It is so that I have lived with my characters, and 
thence has come whatever success I have obtained. 
There is a gallery of them, and of all in that gallery I 
may say that I know the tone of the voice, and the 
colour of the hair, every flame of the eye, and the very 
clothes they wear. Of each man I could assert whether 
he would have said these or the other words; of every 
woman, whether she would then have smiled or so have 
frowned. When I shall feel that this intimacy ceases, 
then I shall know that the old horse should be turned 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 203 

out to grass. That I shall feel it when I ought to feel 
it, I will by no means say, I do not know that I am at 
all wiser than Gil Bias' canon; but I do know that the 
power indicated is one without which the teller of tales 
cannot tell them to any good effect. 

The language in which the novelist is to put forth his 
story, the colours with which he is to paint his picture, 
must of course be to him matter of much consideration. 
Let him have all other possible gifts, — imagination, 
observation, erudition, and industry, — they will avail 
him nothing for his purpose, unless he can put forth his 
work in pleasant words. If he be confused, tedious, 
harsh, or unharmonious, readers will certainly reject 
him. The reading of a volume of history or on science 
may represent itself as a duty ; and though the duty may 
by a bad style be made very disagreeable, the conscien- 
tious reader will perhaps perform it. But the novelist 
will be assisted by no such feeling. Any reader may 
reject his work without the burden of a sin. It is the 
first necessity of his position that he make himself 
pleasant. To do this, much more is necessary than to 
write correctly. He may indeed be pleasant without 
being correct, — as I think can be proved by the works 
of more than one distinguished novelist. But he mijst 
be intelligible, — intelligible without trouble; and he 
must be harmonious. 

Any writer who has read even a little will know 
what is meant by the word intelligible. It is not suf- 
ficient that there be a meaning that may be hammered 
out of the sentence, but that the language should be so 
pellucid that the meaning should be rendered without 
an effort of the reader ; — and not only some proposition 
of meaning, but the very sense, no more and no less, 
which the writer has intended to put into his words. 



204 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

What Macaulay says should be remembered by all 
writers : " How little the all-important art of making 
meaning pellucid is studied now ! Hardly any popular 
author except myself thinks of it." The language used 
should be as ready and as efficient a conductor of the 
mind of the writer to the mind of the reader as is 
the electric spark which passes from one battery to 
another battery. In all written matter the spark 
should carry everything; but in matters recondite 
the recipient will search to see that he misses nothing, 
and that he takes nothing away too much. The novelist 
cannot expect that any such search will be made. A 
young writer, who will acknowledge the truth of what 
I am saying, will often feel himself tempted by the dif- 
ficulties of language to tell himself that some one little 
doubtful passage, some single collocation of words, 
which is not quite what it ought to be, will not matter. 
I know well what a stumbling-block such a passage may 
be. But he should leave none such behind him as he 
goes on. The habit of writing clearly soon comes to 
the writer who is a severe critic to himself. 

As to that harmonious expression which I think is 
required, I shall find it more difficult to express my 
meaning. It will be granted, I think, by readers that a 
style may be rough, and yet both forcible and intelli- 
gible; but it will seldom come to pass that a novel 
written in a rough style will be popular, — and less often 
that a novelist who habitually uses such a style will 
become so. The harmony which is required must come 
from the practice of the ear. There are few ears natu- 
rally so dull that they cannot, if time be allowed to them, 
decide whether a sentence, when read, be or be not 
harmonious. And the sense of such harmony grows 
on the ear, when the intelligence has once informed 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 205 

itself as to what is, and what is not harmonious. The 
boy, for instance, who learns with accuracy the prosody 
of a Sapphic stanza, and has received through his intel- 
ligence a knowledge of its parts, will soon tell by his 
ear whether a Sapphic stanza be or be not correct. 
Take a girl, endowed with gifts of music, well instructed 
in her art, with perfect ear, and read to her such a 
stanza with two words transposed, as, for instance — 

Mercuri, nam te docilis magistro 
Movit Amphion canendo lapides, 
Tuque testudo resonare septem 
Callida nervis — 

and she will find no halt in the rhythm. But a schoolboy 
with none of her musical acquirements or capacities, 
who has, however, become familiar with the metres of 
the poet, will at once discover the fault. And so will 
the writer become familiar with what is harmonious 
in prose. But in order that familiarity may serve him 
in his business, he must so train his ear that he shall 
be able to weigh the rhythm of every word as it falls 
from his pen. This, when it has been done for a time, 
even for a short time, will become so habitual to him 
that he will have appreciated the metrical duration of 
every syllable before it shall have dared to show itself 
upon paper. The art of the orator is the same. He 
knows beforehand how each sound which he is about 
to utter will affect the force of his climax. If a writer 
will do so he will charm his readers, though his readers 
will probably not know how they have been charmed. 

In writing a novel the author soon becomes aware 
that a burden of many pages is before him. Circum- 
stances require that he should cover a certain and gen- 



2o6 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

erally not a very confined space. Short novels are not 
popular with readers generally. Critics often complain 
of the ordinary length of novels, — of the three volumes 
to which they are subjected; but few novels which 
have attained great success in England have been told 
in fewer pages. The novel-writer who sticks to novel- 
writing as his profession will certainly find that this 
burden of length is incumbent on him. How shall he 
carry his burden to the end? How shall he cover his 
space? Many great artists have by their practice op- 
posed the doctrine which I now propose to preach; — 
but they have succeeded I think in spite of their fault 
and by dint of their greatness. There should be no 
episodes in a novel. Every sentence, every word, 
through all those pages, should tend to the telling of 
the story. Such episodes distract the attention of the 
reader, and always do so disagreeably. Who has not 
felt this to be the case even with The Curious Imper- 
tinent and with the History of the Man of the Hill. 
And if it be so with Cervantes and Fielding, who can 
hope to succeed? Though the novel which you have to 
write must be long, let it be all one. And this exclusion 
of episodes should be carried down into the smallest 
details. Every sentence and every word used should 
tend to the telling of the story. " But," the young 
novelist will say, " with so many pages before me to be 
filled, how shall I succeed if I thus confine myself; — 
how am I to know beforehand what space this story of 
mine will require? There must be the three volumes, 
or the certain number of magazine pages which I have 
contracted to supply. If I may not be discursive should 
occasion require, how shall I complete my task? The 
painter suits the size of his canvas to his subject, and 
must I in my art stretch my subject to my canvas?" 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 20/ 

This undoubtedly must be done by the novelist; and if 
he will learn his business, may be done without injury 
to his effect. He may not paint different pictures on 
the same canvas, which he will do if he allow himself 
to wander away to matters outside his own story; but 
by studying proportion in his work, he may teach 
himself so to tell his story that it shall naturally fall 
into the required length. Though his story should be 
all one, yet it may have many parts. Though the plot 
itself may require but few characters, it may be so 
enlarged as to find its full development in many. There 
may be subsidiary plots, which shall all tend to the 
elucidation of the main story, and which will take their 
places as part of one and the same work, — as there 
may be many figures on a canvas which shall not to 
the spectator seem to form themselves into separate 
pictures. 

There is no portion of a novelist's work in which this 
fault of episodes is so common as in the dialogue. It is 
so easy to make any two persons talk on any casual 
subject with which the writer presumes himself to be 
conversant ! Literature, philosophy, politics, or sport, 
may thus be handled in a loosely discursive style; and 
the writer, while indulging himself and filling his pages, 
is apt to think that he is pleasing his reader. I think 
he can make no greater mistake. The dialogue is gen- 
erally the most agreeable part of a novel ; but it is only 
so as long as it tends in some way to the telling of the 
main story. It need not seem to be confined to that, 
but it should always have a tendency in that direction. 
The unconscious critical acumen of a reader is both 
just and severe. When a long dialogue on extraneous 
matter reaches his mind, he at once feels that he is 
being cheated into taking something which he did not 



208 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

bargain to accept when he took up that novel. He does 
not at that moment require poHtics or philosophy, but 
he wants his story. He will not perhaps be able to 
say in so many words that at some certain point 
the dialogue has deviated from the story; but when it 
does so he will feel it, and the feeling will be unpleasant. 
Let the intending novel-writer, if he doubt this, read 
one of Bulwer's novels, — in which there is very much 
to charm, — and then ask himself whether he has not 
been offended by devious conversations. 

And the dialogue, on which the modern novelist in 
consulting the taste of his probable readers must de- 
pend most, has to be constrained also by other rules. 
The writer may tell much of his story in conversations, 
but he may only do so by putting such words into the 
mouths of his personages as persons so situated would 
probably use. He is not allowed for the sake of his tale 
to make his characters give utterance to long speeches, 
such as are not customarily heard from men and 
women. The ordinary talk of ordinary people is car- 
ried on in short, sharp, expressive sentences, which very 
frequently are never completed, — the language of which 
even among educated people is often incorrect. The 
novel-writer in constructing his dialogue must so steer 
between absolute accuracy of language — which would 
give to his conversation an air of pedantry, and the 
slovenly inaccuracy of ordinary talkers, which if 
closely followed would offend by an appearance of 
grimace — as to produce upon the ear of his readers a 
sense of reality. If he be quite real he will seem to 
attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct he will 
seem to be unreal. And above all, let the speeches be 
short. No character should utter much above a dozen 
words at a breath, — unless the writer can justify to 



ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM 20g 

himself a longer flood of speech by the specialty of the 
occasion. 

In all this human nature must be the novel-writer's 
guide. No doubt effective novels have been written in 
which human nature has been set at defiance. I might 
name Caleb Williams as one and Adam Blair as another. 
But the exceptions are not more than enough to prove 
the rule. But in following human nature he must 
remember that he does so with a pen in his hand, and 
that the reader who will appreciate human nature will 
also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude. 

The young novelist will probably ask, or more prob- 
ably bethink himself how he is to acquire that knowl- 
edge of human nature which will tell him with accuracy 
what men and women would say in this or that posi- 
tion. He must acquire it as the compositor, who is to 
print his words, has learned the art of distributing his 
type — ^by constant and intelligent practice. Unless it 
be given to him to listen and to observe, — so to carry 
away, as it were, the manners of people in his memory, 
as to be able to say to himself with assurance that these 
words might have been said in a given position, and 
that those other words could not have been said, — I 
do not think that in these days he can succeed as a 
novelist. 

And then let him beware of creating tedium! Who 
has not felt the charm of a spoken story up to a cer- 
tain point, and then suddenly become aware that it has 
become too long and is the reverse of charming. It is 
not only that the entire book may have this fault, but 
that this fault may occur in chapters, in passages, in 
pages, in paragraphs. I know no guard against this so 
likely to be effective as the feeling of the writer him- 
self. When once the sense that the thing is becoming 



2IO AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

long has grown upon him, he may be sure that it will 
grow upon his readers. I see the smile of some who 
will declare to themselves that the words of a writer 
will never be tedious to himself. Of the writer of 
whom this may be truly said, it may be said with equal 
truth that he will always be tedious to his readers. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 

In this chapter I will venture to name a few successful 
novelists of my own time, with whose works I am 
acquainted; and will endeavour to point whence their 
success has come, and why they have failed when there 
has been failure. 

I do not hesitate to name Thackeray the first. His 
knowledge of human nature was supreme, and his 
characters stand out as human beings, with a force and 
a truth which has not, I think, been within the reach 
of any other English novelist in any period. I know 
no character in fiction, unless it be Don Quixote, with 
whom the reader becomes so intimately acquainted as 
with Colonel Newcombe. How great a thing it is to be 
a gentleman at all parts ! How we admire the man of 
whom so much may be said with truth! Is there any 
one of whom we feel more sure in this respect than of 
Colonel Newcombe? It is not because Colonel New- 
combe is a perfect gentleman that we think Thack- 
eray's work to have been so excellent, but because 
he has had the power to describe him as such, and to 
force us to love him, a weak and silly old man, on 
account of this grace of character. 

It is evident from all Thackeray's best work that he 
lived with the characters he was creating. He had 
always a story to tell until quite late in life; and he 

211 



212 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

shows US that this was so, not by the interest which he 
had in his own plots, — for I doubt whether his plots 
did occupy much of his mind, — but by convincing us 
that his characters were alive to himself. With Becky 
Sharpe, with Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and 
with Esmond, with Warrington, Pendennis, and the 
Major, with Colonel Newcombe, and with Barry Lyn- 
don, he must have lived in perpetual intercourse. There- 
fore he has made these personages real to us. 

Among all our novelists his style is the purest, as to 
my ear it is also the most harmonious. Sometimes it 
is disfigured by a slight touch of affectation, by little 
conceits which smell of the oil; — but the language is 
always lucid. The reader, without labour, knows what 
he means, and knows all that he means. As well as I 
can remember, he deals with no episodes. I think that 
any critic, examining his work minutely, would find 
that every scene, and every part of every scene, adds 
something to the clearness with which the story is told. 
Among all his stories there is not one which does not 
leave on the mind a feeling of distress that women 
should ever be immodest or men dishonest, — and of joy 
that women should be so devoted and men so honest. 
How we hate the idle selfishness of Pendennis, the 
worldliness of Beatrix, the craft of Becky Sharpe! — ■ 
how we love the honesty of Colonel Newcombe, the 
nobility of Esmond, and the devoted affection of Mrs, 
Pendennis ! The hatred of evil and love of good can 
hardly have come upon so many readers without doing 
much good. 

Late in Thackeray's life, — he never was an old man, 
but towards the end of his career, — he failed in his 
power of charming, because he allowed his mind to 
become idle. In the plots which he conceived, and in 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 21 3 

the language which he used, I do not know that there 
is any perceptible change ; but in The Virginians and in 
Philip the reader is introduced to no character with 
which he makes a close and undying acquaintance. 
And this, I have no doubt, is so because Thackeray him- 
self had no such intimacy. His mind had come to be 
weary of that fictitious life which is always demanding 
the labour of new creation, and he troubled himself 
with his two Virginians and his Philip only when he 
was seated at his desk. 

At the present moment George Eliot is the first of 
English novelists, and I am disposed to place her second 
of those of my time. She is best known to the literary 
world as a writer of prose fiction, and not improbably 
whatever of permanent fame she may acquire will come 
from her novels. But the nature of her intellect is very 
far removed indeed from that which is common to the 
tellers of stories. Her imagination is no doubt strong, 
but it acts in analysing rather than in creating. Every- 
thing that comes before her is pulled to pieces so that 
the inside of it shall be seen, and be seen if possible by 
her readers as clearly as by herself. This searching 
analysis is carried so far that, in studying her latter 
writings, one feels oneself to be in company with some 
philosopher rather than with a novelist. I doubt whether 
any young person can read with pleasure either Felix 
Holt, Middlemarch, or Daniel Deronda. I know that 
they are very difficult to many that are not young. 

Her personifications of character have been singu- 
larly terse and graphic, and from them has come her 
great hold on the public, — though by no means the 
greatest effect which she has produced. The lessons 
which she teaches remain, though it is not for the sake 
of the lessons that her pages are read. Seth Bede, 



214 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Adam Bede, Maggie and Tom Tulliver, old Silas 
Marner, and, much above all, Tito, in Romola, are 
characters which, when once known, can never be for- 
gotten. I cannot say quite so much for any of those in 
her later works, because in them the philosopher so 
greatly overtops the portrait-painter, that, in the dis- 
section of the mind, the outward signs seem to have 
been forgotten. In her, as yet, there is no symptom 
whatever of that weariness of mind which, when felt 
by the reader, induces him to declare that the author 
has written himself out. It is not from decadence that 
we do not have another Mrs. Poyser, but because the 
author soars to things which seem to her to be higher 
than Mrs. Poyser. 

It is, I think, the defect of George Eliot that she 
struggles too hard to do work that shall be excellent. 
She lacks ease. Latterly the signs of this have been 
conspicuous in her style, which has always been and is 
singularly correct, but which has become occasionally 
obscure from her too great desire to be pungent. It 
is impossible not to feel the struggle, and that feeling 
begets a flavour of affectation^ In Daniel Deronda, of 
which at this moment only a portion has been pub- 
lished, there are sentences which I have found myself 
compelled to read three times before I have been able 
to take home to myself all that the writer has intended. 
Perhaps I may be permitted here to say, that this gifted 
woman was among my dearest and most intimate 
friends. As I am speaking here of novelists, I will not 
attempt to speak of George Eliot's merit as a poet. 

There can be no doubt that the most popular novelist 
of my time — probably the most popular English novelist 
of any time — has been Charles Dickens. He has now 
been dead nearly six years, and the sale of his books 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 21 5 

goes on as it did during his life. The certainty with 
which his novels are found in every house — the famil- 
iarity of his name in all English-speaking countries — 
the popularity of such characters as Mrs. Gamp, 
Micawber, and Pecksniff, and many others whose names 
have entered into the English language and become 
well-known words — the grief of the country at his 
death, and the honours paid to him at his funeral, — all 
testify to his popularity. Since the last book he wrote 
himself, I doubt whether any book has been so popular 
as his biography by John Forster. There is no with- 
standing such testimony as this. Such evidence of 
popular appreciation should go for very much, almost 
for everything, in criticism on the work of a novelist. 
The primary object of a novelist is to please; and this 
man's novels have been found more pleasant than those 
of any other writer. It might of course be objected to 
this, that though the books have pleased they have 
been injurious, that their tendency has been immoral 
and their teaching vicious ; but it is almost needless to 
say that no such charge has ever been made against 
Dickens. His teaching has ever been good. From all 
which, there arises to the critic a question whether, 
with such evidence against him as to the excellence of 
this writer, he should not subordinate his own opinion 
to the collected opinion of the world of readers. To 
me it almost seems that I must be wrong to place 
Dickens after Thackeray and George Eliot, knowing 
as I do that so great a majority put him above those 
authors. 

My own peculiar idiosyncrasy in the matter forbids 
me to do so. I do acknowledge that Mrs. Gamp, 
Micawber, Pecksniff, and others have become house- 
hold words in every house, as though they were human 



2l6 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

beings; but to my judgment they are not human beings, 
nor are any of the characters human which Dickens 
has portrayed. It has been the peculiarity and the 
marvel of this man's power, that he has invested his 
puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense 
with human nature. There is a drollery about them, 
in my estimation, very much below the humour of 
Thackeray, but which has reached the intellect of all; 
while Thackeray's humour has escaped the intellect of 
many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is 
stagey and melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it 
touches every heart a little. There is no real life in 
Smike. His misery, his idiotcy, his devotion for Nich- 
olas, his love for Kate, are all overdone and incom- 
patible with each other. But still the reader sheds a 
tear. Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's 
novels are like Boucicault's plays! He has known how 
to draw his lines broadly, so that all should see the 
colour. 

He, too, in his best days, always lived with his char- 
acters; — and he, too, as he gradually ceased to have 
the power of doing so, ceased to charm. Though they 
are not human beings, we all remember Mrs. Gamp 
and Pickwick. The Boffins and Veneerings do not, J 
think, dwell in the minds of so many. 

Of Dickens's style it is impossible to speak in praise. 
It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in 
defiance of rules — almost as completely as that created 
by Carlyle. To readers who have taught themselves to 
regard language, it must therefore be unpleasant. But 
the critic is driven to feel the weakness of his criticism, 
when he acknowledges to himself — as he is compelled 
in all honesty to do — that with the language, such as it 
is, the writer has satisfied the great mass of the readers 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 21/ 

of his country. Both these great writers have satisfied 
the readers of their own pages; but both have done 
infinite harm by creating a school of imitators. No 
young noveHst should ever dare to imitate the style of 
Dickens. If such a one wants a model for his language, 
let him take Thackeray. 

Bulwer, or Lord Lytton, — but I think that he is still 
better known by his earlier name, — was a man of very 
great parts. Better educated than either of those I 
have named before him, he was always able to use his 
erudition, and he thus produced novels from which very 
much not only may be but must be learned by his 
readers. He thoroughly understood the political status 
of his own country, a subject on which, I think, Dickens 
was marvellously ignorant, and which Thackeray had 
never studied. He had read extensively, and was always 
apt to give his readers the benefit of what he knew. 
The result has been that very much more than amuse- 
ment may be obtained from Bulwer's novels. There is 
also a brightness about them — the result rather of 
thought than of imagination, of study and of care, than 
of mere intellect — which has made many of them excel- 
lent in their way. It is perhaps improper to class all 
his novels together, as he wrote in varied manners, 
making in his earlier works, such as Pelham and Ernest 
Maltravers, pictures of a fictitious life, and afterwards 
pictures of life as he believed it to be, as in My Novel 
and The Caxtons. But from all of them there comes 
the same flavour of an effort to produce effect. The 
effects are produced, but it would have been better if 
the flavour had not been there. 

I cannot say of Bulwer as I have of the other 
novelists whom I have named that he lived with his 
characters. He lived with his work, with the doctrines 



2l8 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which at the time he wished to preach, thinking always 
of the effects which he wished to produce; but I do 
not think he ever knew his own personages, — and there- 
fore neither do we know them. Even Pelham and 
Eugene Aram are not human beings to us, as are Pick- 
wick, and Colonel Newcombe, and Mrs. Foyser. 

In his plots Bulwer has generally been simple, facile, 
and successful. The reader never feels with him, as 
he does with Wilkie Collins, that it is all plot, or, as 
with George Eliot, that there is no plot. The story 
comes naturally without calling for too much attention, 
and is thus proof of the completeness of the man's intel- 
lect. His language is clear, good, intelligible English, 
but it is defaced by mannerism. In all that he did, 
affectation was his fault. 

How shall I speak of my dear old friend Charles 
Lever, and his rattling, jolly, joyous, swearing Irish- 
men. Surely never did a sense of vitality come so con- 
stantly from a man's pen, nor from man's voice, as 
from his ! I knew him well for many years, and whether 
in sickness or in health, I have never come across him 
without finding him to be running over with wit and 
fun. Of all the men I have encountered, he was the 
surest fund of drollery. I have known many witty 
men, many who could say good things, many who 
would sometimes be ready to say them when wanted, 
though they would sometimes fail ; — but he never failed. 
Rouse him in the middle of the night, and wit would 
come from him before he was half awake. And yet he 
never monopolised the talk, was never a bore. He 
would take no more than his own share of the words 
spoken, and would yet seem to brighten all that was 
said during the night. His earlier novels — the later I 
have not read — are just like his conversation. The 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 2ig 

fun never flags, and to me, when I read them, they 
were never tedious. As to character he can hardly be 
said to have produced it. Corney Delaney, the old man- 
servant, may perhaps be named as an exception. 

Lever's novels will not live long, — even if they may 
be said to be alive now, — because it is so. What was 
his manner of working I do not know, but I should 
think it must have been very quick, and that he never 
troubled himself on the subject, except when he was 
seated with a pen in his hand. 

Charlotte Bronte was surely a marvellous woman. If 
it could be right to judge the work of a novelist from 
one small portion of one novel, and to say of an author 
that he is to be accounted as strong as he shows him- 
self to be in his strongest morsel of work, I should be 
inclined to put Miss Bronte very high indeed. I know 
no interest more thrilling than that which she has been 
able to throw into the characters of Rochester and the 
governess, in the second volume of Jane Eyre. She 
lived with those characters, and felt every fibre of the 
heart, the longings of the one and the sufferings of 
the other. And therefore, though the end of the book 
is weak, and the beginning not very good, I venture to 
predict that Jane Eyre will be read among English 
novels when many whose names are now better known 
shall have been forgotten. Jane Eyre, and Esmond, and 
Adam Bede will be in the hands of our grandchildren, 
when Pickwick, and Pelham, and Harry Lorrequer are 
forgotten; because the men and women depicted are 
human in their aspirations, human in their sympathies, 
and human in their actions. 

In Villette, too, and in Shirley, there is to be found 
human life as natural and as real, though in circum- 
stances not so full of interest as those told in Jane 



220 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Eyre. The character of Paul in the former of the two 
is a wonderful study. She must herself have been in 
love with some Paul when she wrote the book, and 
have been determined to prove to herself that she was 
capable of loving one whose exterior circumstances 
were mean and in every way unprepossessing. 

There is no writer of the present day who has so 
much puzzled me by his eccentricities, impracticabili- 
ties, and capabilities as Charles Reade. I look upon him 
as endowed almost with genius, but as one who has not 
been gifted by nature with ordinary powers of reason- 
ing. He can see what is grandly noble and admire it 
with all his heart. He can see, too, what is foully 
vicious and hate it with equal ardour. But in the com- 
mon affairs of life he cannot see what is right or wrong; 
and as he is altogether unwilling to be guided by the 
opinion of others, he is constantly making mistakes in 
his literary career, and subjecting himself to reproach 
which he hardly deserves. He means to be honest. He 
means to be especially honest, — more honest than other 
people. He has written a book called The Eighth Com- 
mandment on behalf of honesty in literary transactions, 
— a wonderful work, which has I believe been read by 
a very few. I never saw a copy except that in my own 
library, or heard of any one who knew the book. 
Nevertheless it is a volume that must have taken very 
great labour, and have been written, — as indeed he de- 
clares that it was written, — without the hope of pecun- 
iary reward. He makes an appeal to the British 
Parliament and British people on behalf of literary 
honesty, declaring that should he fail — " I shall have 
to go on blushing for the people I was born among." 
And yet of all the writers of my day he has seemed to 
me to understand literary honesty the least. On one 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 221 

occasion, as he tells us in this book, he bought for a 
certain sum from a French author the right of using 
a plot taken from a play, — which he probably might have 
used without such purchase, and also without infringing 
any international copyright act. The French author not 
unnaturally praises him for the transaction, telling him 
that he is " un vrai gentleman." The plot was used 
by Reade in a novel; and a critic discovering the 
adaptation, made known his discovery to the public. 
Whereupon the novelist became angry, called his critic 
a pseudonymuncle, and defended himself by stating the 
fact of his own purchase. In all this he seems to me 
to ignore what we all mean when we talk of literary 
plagiarism and literary honesty. The sin of which the 
author is accused is not that of taking another man's 
property, but of passing off as his own creation that 
which he does not himself create. When an author 
puts his name to a book he claims to have written all 
that there is therein, unless he makes direct significa- 
tion to the contrary. Some years subsequently there 
arose another similar question, in which Mr. Reade's 
opinion was declared even more plainly, and certainly 
very much more publicly. In a tale which he wrote he 
inserted a dialogue which he took from Swift, and took 
without any acknowledgment. As might have been 
expected, one of the critics of the day fell foul of him 
for this barefaced plagiarism. The author, however, 
defended himself, with much abuse of the critic, by 
asserting, that whereas Swift had found the jewel he 
had supplied the setting; — an argument in which there 
was some little wit, and would have been much excel- 
lent truth, had he given the words as belonging to Swift 
and not to himself. 

The novels of a man possessed of so singular a mind 



222 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

must themselves be very strange, — and they are strange. 
It has generally been his object to write down some 
abuse with which he has been particularly struck, — 
the harshness, for instance, with which paupers or 
lunatics are treated, or the wickedness of certain classes, 
- — and he always, I think, leaves upon his readers an 
idea of great earnestness of purpose. But he has always 
left at the same time on my mind so strong a convic- 
tion that he has not really understood his subject, that 
I have ever found myself taking the part of those whom 
he has accused. So good a heart, and so wrong a head, 
surely no novelist ever before had combined ! In story- 
telling he has occasionally been almost great. Among 
his novels I would especially recommend The Cloister 
and the Hearth. I do not know that in this work, or 
in any, that he has left a character that will remain; 
but he has written some of his scenes so brightly that 
to read them would always be a pleasure. 

Of Wilkie Collins it is impossible for a true critic 
not to speak with admiration, because he has excelled 
all his contemporaries in a certain most difficult branch 
of his art ; but as it is a branch which I have not myself 
at all cultivated, it is not unnatural that his work should 
be very much lost upon me individually. When I sit 
down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not 
very much care, how it is to end. Wilkie Collins seems 
so to construct his that he not only, before writing, plans 
everything on, down to the minutest detail, from the 
beginning to the end; but then plots it all back again, 
to see that there is no piece of necessary dove-tailing 
which does not dove-tail with absolute accuracy. The 
construction is most minute and most wonderful. But 
I can never lose the taste of the construction. The 
author seems always to be warning me to remember 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 223 

that something happened at exactly half-past two 
o'clock on Tuesday morning; or that a woman dis- 
appeared from the road just fifteen yards beyond the 
fourth mile-stone. One is constrained by mysteries and 
hemmed in by difficulties, knowing, however, that the 
mysteries will be made clear, and the difficulties over- 
come at the end of the third volume. Such work gives 
me no pleasure. I am, however, quite prepared to 
acknowledge that the want of pleasure comes from 
fault of my intellect. 

There are two ladies of whom I would fain say a 
word, though I feel that I am making my list too long, 
in order that I may declare how much I have admired 
their work. They are Annie Thackeray and Rhoda 
Broughton. I have known them both, and have loved 
the former almost as though she belonged to me. No 
two writers were ever more dissimilar, — except in this 
that they are both feminine. Miss Thackeray's char- 
acters are sweet, charming, and quite true to human 
nature. In her writings she is always endeavouring 
to prove that good produces good, and evil evil. There 
is not a line of which she need be ashamed, — not a 
sentiment of which she should not be proud. But she 
writes like a lazy writer who dislikes her work, and 
who allows her own want of energy to show itself in 
her pages. 

Miss Broughton, on the other hand, is full of energy, 
— though she too, I think, can become tired over her 
work. She, however, does take the trouble to make 
her personages stand upright on the ground. And she 
has the gift of making them speak as men and women 
do speak. " You beast ! " said Nancy, sitting on the 
wall, to the man who was to be her husband, — think- 
ing that she was speaking to her brother. Now Nancy, 



224 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

whether right or wrong, was just the girl who would, 
as circumstances then were, have called her brother 
a beast. There is nothing wooden about any of Miss 
Broughton's novels; and in these days so many novels 
are wooden ! But they are not sweet-savoured as 
are those by Miss Thackeray, and are, therefore, less 
true to nature. In Miss Broughton's determination not 
to be mawkish and missish, she has made her ladies 
do and say things which ladies would not do and say. 
They throw themselves at men's heads, and when they 
are not accepted only think how they may throw them- 
selves again. Miss Broughton is still so young that 
I hope she may live to overcome her fault in this 
direction. 

There is one other name, without which the list 
of the best known English novelists of my own time 
would certainly be incomplete, and that is the name of 
the present Prime Minister of England. Mr. Disraeli 
has written so many novels, and has been so popular 
as a novelist that, whether for good or for ill, I feel 
myself compelled to speak of him. He began his 
career as an author early in life, publishing Vivian 
Grey when he was twenty-three years old. He was 
very young for such work, though hardly young enough 
to justify the excuse that he makes in his own preface, 
that it is a book written by a boy. Dickens was, I 
think, younger when he wrote his Sketches by Bos, 
and as young when he was writing the Pickwick 
Papers. It was hardly longer ago than the other day 
when Mr. Disraeli brought out Lothair, and between 
the two there were eight or ten others. To me they 
have all had the same flavour of paint and unreality. 
In whatever he has written he has affected something 
which has been intended to strike his readers as uncom- 



ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY 22$ 

mon and therefore grand. Because he has been bright 
and a man of genius, he has carried his object as 
regards the young. He has struck them with astonish- 
ment and aroused in their imagination ideas of a world 
more glorious, more rich, more witty, more enterpris- 
ing, than their own. But the glory has been the glory 
of pasteboard, and the wealth has been a wealth of 
tinsel. The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, 
and the enterprise has been the enterprise of mounte- 
banks. An audacious conjurer has generally been his 
hero, — some youth who, by wonderful cleverness, can 
obtain success by every intrigue that comes to his 
hand. Through it all there is a feeling of stage proper- 
ties, a smell of hair-oil, an aspect of buhl, a remembrance 
of tailors, and that pricking of the conscience which 
must be the general accompaniment of paste diamonds. 
I can understand that Mr. Disraeli should by his novels 
have instigated many a young man and many a young 
woman on their way in life, but I cannot understand 
that he should have instigated any one to good. Vivian 
Grey has had probably as many followers as Jack 
Sheppard, and has led his followers in the same 
direction. 

Lothair, which is as yet Mr. Disraeli's last work, 
and, I think, undoubtedly his worst, has been defended 
on a plea somewhat similar to that by which he has 
defended Vivian Grey. As that was written when he 
was too young, so was the other when he was too 
old, — too old for work of that nature, though not 
too old to be Prime Minister. If his mind were so 
occupied with greater things as to allow him to write 
such a work, yet his judgment should have sufficed 
to induce him to destroy it when written. Here that 
flavour of hair-oil, that flavour of false jewels, that 



226 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

remembrance of tailors, comes out stronger than in 
all the others. Lothair is falser even than Vivian 
Grey, and Lady Corisande, the daughter of the Duchess, 
more inane and unwomanlike than Venetia or Henri- 
etta Temple. It is the very bathos of story-telling. 
I have often lamented, and have as often excused to 
myself, that lack of public judgment which enables 
readers to put up with bad work because it comes 
from good or from lofty hands. I never felt the feeling 
so strongly, or was so little able to excuse it, as when 
a portion of the reading public received Lothair with 
satisfaction. 



CHAPTER XIV 

ON CRITICISM 

Literary criticism in the present day has become a 
profession, — but it has ceased to be an art. Its object 
is no longer that of proving that certain literary work 
is good and other literary work is bad, in accordance 
with rules which the critic is able to define. English 
criticism at present rarely even pretends to go so far 
as this. It attempts, in the first place, to tell the public 
whether a book be or be not worth public attention; 
and, in the second place, so to describe the purport 
of the work as to enable those who have not time or 
inclination for reading it to feel that by a short cut 
they can become acquainted with its contents. Both 
these objects, if fairly well carried out, are salutary. 
Though the critic may not be a profound judge himself; 
though not unfrequently he be a young man making 
his first literary attempts, with tastes and judgment 
still unfixed, yet he probably has a conscience in the 
matter, and would not have been selected for that 
work had he not shown some aptitude for it. Though 
he may be not the best possible guide to the undis- 
cerning, he will be better than no guide at all. Real 
substantial criticism must, from its nature, be costly, 
and that which the public wants should at any rate 
be cheap. Advice is given to many thousands, which, 
though it may not be the best advice possible, is better 
than no advice at all. Then that description of the 
work criticised, that compressing of the much into 

227 



228 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

very little, — which is the work of many modern critics 
or reviewers, — does enable many to know something 
of what is being said, who without it would know 
nothing. 

I do not think it is incumbent on me at present 
to name periodicals in which this work is well done, 
and to make complaints of others by which it is 
scamped. I should give offence, and might probably 
be unjust. But I think I may certainly say that as 
some of these periodicals are certainly entitled to great 
praise for the manner in which the work is done 
generally, so are others open to very severe censure, 
• — and that the praise and that the censure are chiefly 
due on behalf of one virtue and its opposite vice. It 
is not critical ability that we have a right to demand, 
or its absence that we are bound to deplore. Critical 
ability for the price we pay is not attainable. It is 
a faculty not peculiar to Englishmen, and when dis- 
played is very frequently not appreciated. But that 
critics should be honest we have a right to demand, 
and critical dishonesty we are bound to expose. If the 
writer will tell us what he thinks, though his thoughts 
be absolutely vague and useless, we can forgive him; 
but when he tells us what he does not think, actuated 
either by friendship or by animosity, then there should 
be no pardon for him. This is the sin in modern 
English criticism of which there is most reason to 
complain. 

It is a lamentable fact that men and women lend 
themselves to this practice who are neither vindictive 
nor ordinarily dishonest. It has become " the custom 
of the trade," under the veil of which excuse so many 
tradesmen justify their malpractices! When a strug- 
gling author learns that so much has been done for 



ON CRITICISM 229 

A by the Barsetshire Gazette, so much for B by the 
Dillshorough Herald, and, again, so much for C by 
that powerful metropolitan organ the Evening Pulpit, 
and is told also that A and B and C have been favoured 
through personal interest, he also goes to work among 
the editors, or the editors' wives, — or perhaps, if he 
cannot reach their wives, with their wives' first or 
second cousins. When once the feeling has come upon 
an editor or" a critic that he may allow himself to be 
influenced by other considerations than the duty he 
owes to the public, all sense of critical or of editorial 
honesty falls from him at once. Facilis descensus 
Averni. In a very short time that editorial honesty 
becomes ridiculous to himself. It is for other purpose 
that he wields the power; and when he is told what 
is his duty, and what should be his conduct, the 
preacher of such doctrine seems to him to be quixotic. 
" Where have you lived, my friend, for the last twenty 
years," he says in spirit, if not in word, " that you 
come out now with such stuff as old-fashioned as 
this ? " And thus dishonesty begets dishonesty, till 
dishonesty seems to be beautiful. How nice to be 
good-natured ! How glorious to assist struggling 
young authors, especially if the young author be also 
a pretty woman ! How gracious to oblige a friend ! 
Then the motive, though still pleasing, departs further 
from the border of what is good. In what way can 
the critic better repay the hospitality of his wealthy 
literary friend than by good-natured criticism, — or 
more certainly ensure for himself a continuation of 
hospitable favours? 

Some years since a critic of the day, a gentleman well 
known then in literary circles, showed me the manu- 
script of a book recently published. — the work of a 



230 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

popular author. It was handsomely bound, and was a 
valuable and desirable possession. It had just been 
given to him by the author as an acknowledgment for 
a laudatory review in one of the leading journals of 
the day. As I was expressly asked whether I did not 
regard such a token as a sign of grace both in the 
giver and in the receiver, I said that I thought it 
should neither have been given nor have been taken. 
My theory was repudiated with scorn, and I was told 
that I was strait-laced, visionary, and impracticable ! 
In all that the damage did not lie in the fact of that 
one present, but in the feeling on the part of the critic 
that his office was not debased by the acceptance of 
^presents from those whom he criticised. This man 
was a professional critic, bound by his contract with 
certain employers to review such books as were sent 
to him. How could he, when he had received a 
valuable present for praising one book, censure another 
by the same author? 

While I write this I well know that what I say, 
if it be ever noticed at all, will be taken as a straining 
at gnats, as a pretence of honesty, or at any rate as 
an exaggeration of scruples. I have said the same 
thing before, and have been ridiculed for saying it. 
But none the less am I sure that English literature 
generally is suffering much under this evil. All those 
who are struggling for success have forced upon them 
the idea that their strongest efforts should be made in 
touting for praise. Those who are not familiar with 
the lives of authors will hardly believe how low will 
be the forms which their struggles will take: — how 
little presents will be sent to men who write little 
articles; how much flattery may be expended even 
on the keeper of a circulating library; with what pro- 



ON CRITICISM 231 

fuse and distant genuflexions approaches are made to 
the outside railing of the temple which contains within 
it the great thunderer of some metropolitan periodical 
publication ! The evil here is not only that done to 
the public when interested counsel is given to them, 
but extends to the debasement of those who have at 
any rate considered themselves fit to provide literature 
for the public. 

I am satisfied that the remedy for this evil must lie 
in the conscience and deportment of authors them- 
selves. If once the feeling could be produced that it 
is disgraceful for an author to ask for praise, — and 
demands for praise are, I think, disgraceful in every 
walk of life, — the practice would gradually fall into 
the hands only of the lowest, and that which is done 
only by the lowest soon becomes despicable even to 
them. The sin, when perpetuated with unflagging 
labour, brings with it at best very poor reward. That 
work of running after critics, editors, publishers, the 
keepers of circulating libraries, and their clerks, is 
very hard, and must be very disagreeable. He who 
does it must feel himself to be dishonoured, — or she. 
It may perhaps help to sell an edition, but can never 
make an author successful. 

I think it may be laid down as a golden rule in 
literature that there should be no intercourse at all 
between an author and his critic. The critic, as critic, 
should not know his author, nor the author, as author, 
his critic. As censure should beget no anger, so should 
praise beget no gratitude. The young author should 
feel that criticisms fall upon him as dew or hail from 
heaven, — which, as coming from heaven, man accepts 
as fate. Praise let the author try to obtain by whole- 
some effort; censure let him avoid, if possible, by care 



232 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and industry. But when they come, let him take them 
as coming from some source which he cannot influence, 
and with which he should not meddle. 

I know no more disagreeable trouble into which 
an author may plunge himself than of a quarrel with 
his critics, or any more useless labour than that of 
answering them. It is wise to presume, at any rate, 
that the reviewer has simply done his duty, and has 
spoken of the book according to the dictates of his 
conscience. Nothing can be gained by combating the 
reviewer's opinion. If the book which he has dis- 
paraged be good, his judgment will be condemned by 
the praise of others; if bad, his judgment will be 
confirmed by others. Or if, unfortunately, the crit- 
icism of the day be in so evil a condition generally 
that such ultimate truth cannot be expected, the author 
may be sure that his efforts made on behalf of his own 
book will not set matters right. If injustice be done 
him, let him bear it. To do so is consonant with the 
dignity of the position which he ought to assume. To 
shriek, and scream, and sputter, to threaten actions, 
and to swear about the town that he has been belied 
and defamed in that he has been accused of bad 
grammar or a false metaphor, of a dull chapter, or even 
of a borrowed heroine, will leave on the minds of the 
public nothing but a sense of irritated impotence. 

If, indeed, there should spring from an author's 
work any assertion by a critic injurious to the author's 
honour, if the author be accused of falsehood or of 
personal motives which are discreditable to him, then, 
indeed, he may be bound to answer the charge. It is 
hoped, however, that he may be able to do so with 
clean hands, or he will so stir the mud in the pool as 
to come forth dirtier than he went into it. 



ON CRITICISM 233 

I have lived much among men by whom the English 
criticism of the day has been vehemently abused. I 
have heard it said that to the public it is a false guide, 
and that to authors it is never a trustworthy Mentor. 
I do not concur in this wholesale censure. There is, 
of course, criticism and criticism. There are at this 
moment one or two periodicals to which both public 
and authors may safely look for guidance, though there 
are many others from which no spark of literary 
advantage may be obtained. But it is well that both 
public and authors should know what is the advantage 
which they have a right to expect. There have been 
critics, — and there probably will be again, though the 
circumstances of English literature do not tend to pro- 
duce them, — with power sufficient to entitle them to 
speak with authority. These great men have declared, 
tanquam ex cathedra, that such a book has been so far 
good and so far bad, or that it has been altogether 
good or altogether bad; — and the world has believed 
them. When making such assertions they have given 
their reasons, explained their causes, and have carried 
conviction. Very great reputations have been achieved 
by such critics, but not without infinite study and the 
labour of many years. 

Such are not the critics of the day, of whom we 
are now speaking. In the literary world as it lives at 
present some writer is selected for the place of critic 
to a newspaper, generally some young writer, who for 
so many shillings a column shall review whatever book 
is sent to him and express an opinion, — reading the 
book through for the purpose, if the amount of hon- 
orarium as measured with the amount of labour will 
enable him to do so. A labourer must measure his 
work by his pay or he cannot live. From criticism 



234 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

such as this must for the most part be, the genera! 
reader has no right to expect philosophical analysis, 
or literary judgment on which confidence may be 
placed. But he probably may believe that the books 
praised will be better than the books censured, and that 
those which are praised by periodicals which never 
censure are better worth his attention than those which 
are not noticed. And readers will also find that by 
devoting an hour or two on Saturday to the criticisms 
of the week, they will enable themselves to have an 
opinion about the books of the day. The knowledge 
so acquired will not be great, nor will that little be 
lasting; but it adds something to the pleasure of life 
to be able to talk on subjects of which others are 
speaking; and the man who has sedulously gone 
through the literary notices in the Spectator and the 
Saturday may perhaps be justified in thinking himself as 
well able to talk about the new book as his friend who 
has bought that new book on the tapis, and who, not im- 
probably, obtained his information from the same source. 
As an author, I have paid careful attention to the 
reviews which have been written on my own work; 
and I think that now I well know where I may look 
for a little instruction, where I may expect only greasy 
adulation, where I shall be cut up into mince-meat for 
the delight of those who love sharp invective, and 
where I shall find an equal mixture of praise and 
censure so adjusted, without much judgment, as to 
exhibit the impartiality of the newspaper and its staff. 
Among it all there is much chaff, which I have learned 
how to throw to the winds, with equal disregard 
whether it praises or blames; — but I have also found 
some corn, on which I have fed and nourished myself, 
and for which I have been thankful. 



CHAPTER XV 

**THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET " — LEAVING THE 
POST OFFICE — "ST. PAUL's MAGAZINE '' 

I WILL now go back to the year 1867, in which I was 
still living at Waltham Cross. I had some time since 
bought the house there which I had at first hired, and 
added rooms to it, and made it for our purposes very 
comfortable. It was, however, a rickety old place, 
requiring much repair, and occasionally not as weather- 
tight as it should be. We had a domain there sufficient 
for the cows, and for the making of our butter and 
hay. For strawberries, asparagus, green peas, out-of- 
•door peaches, for roses especially, and such everyday 
luxuries, no place was ever more excellent. It was 
only twelve miles from London, and admitted there- 
fore of frequent intercourse with the metropolis. It 
was also near enough to the Roothing country for 
hunting purposes. No doubt the Shoreditch Station, 
by which it had to be reached, had its drawbacks. My 
average distance also to the Essex meets was twenty 
miles. But the place combined as much or more than 
I had a right to expect. It was within my own postal 
district, and had, upon the whole, been well chosen. 

The work that I did during the twelve years that I 
remained there, from 1859 to 1871, was certainly very 
great. I feel confident that in amount no other writer 
contributed so much during that time to English liter- 
ature. Over and above my novels, I wrote political 
235 



236 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

articles, critical, social, and sporting articles, for peri- 
odicals, without number. I did the work of a surveyor 
of the General Post Office, and so did it as to give 
the authorities of the department no slightest pretext 
for fault-finding. I hunted always at least twice a 
week. I was frequent in the whist-room at the Garrick. 
I lived much in society in London, and was made 
happy by the presence of many friends at Waltham 
Cross. In addition to this we always spent six weeks 
at least out of England. Few men, I think, ever lived 
a fuller life. And I attribute the power of doing this 
altogether to the virtue of early hours. It was my 
practice to be at my table every morning at 5.30 a. m. ; 
and it was also my practice to allow myself no mercy. 
An old groom, whose business it was to call me, and 
to whom I paid £5 a year extra for the duty, allowed 
himself no mercy. During all those years at Waltham 
Cross he was never once late with the coffee which it 
was his duty to bring me. I do not know that I ought 
not to feel that I owe more to him than to any one 
else for the success I have had. By beginning at that 
hour I could complete my literary work before I dressed 
for breakfast. 

All those I think who have lived as literary men, — 
working daily as literary labourers, — will agree with 
me that three hours a day will produce as much as a 
man ought to write. But then he should so have 
trained himself that he shall be able to work contin- 
uously during those three hours, — so have tutored his 
mind that it shall not be necessary for him to sit 
nibbling his pen, and gazing at the wall before him, 
till he shall have found the words with which he 
wants to express his ideas. It had at this time become 
my custom, — and it still is my custom, though of late 



237 

I have become a little lenient to myself, — to write with 
my watch before me, and to require from myself 250 
words every quarter of an hour. I have found that 
the 250 words have been forthcoming as regularly 
as my watch went. But my three hours were not 
devoted entirely to writing. I always began my task 
by reading the work of the day before, an operation 
which would take me half an hour, and which con- 
sisted chiefly in weighing with my ear the sound of 
the words and phrases. I would strongly recommend 
this practice to all tyros in writing. That their work 
should be read after it has been written is a matter 
of course, — that it should be read twice at least before 
it goes to the printers, I take to be a matter of course. 
But by reading what he has last written, just before 
he recommences his task, the writer will catch the 
tone and spirit of what he is then saying, and will 
avoid the fault of seeming to be unlike himself. This 
division of time allowed me to produce over ten pages 
of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if kept up 
through ten months, would have given as its results 
three novels of three volumes each in the year; — the 
precise amount which so greatly acerbated the pub- 
lisher in Paternoster Row, and which must at any 
rate be felt to be quite as much as the novel-readers 
of the world can want from the hands of one man. 

I have never written three novels in a year, but 
by following the plan above described I have written 
more than as much as three volumes; and by adher- 
ing to it over a course of years, I have been enabled 
to have always on hand, — for some time back now, — 
one or two or even three unpublished novels in my 
desk beside me. Were I to die now there are three 
such besides The Prime Minister, half of which has 



238 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

only yet been issued. One of these has been six years 
finished, and has never seen the light since it was first 
tied up in the wrapper which now contains it. I look 
forward with some grim pleasantry to its publication 
after another period of six years, and to the declaration 
of the critics that it has been the work of a period of 
life at which the power of writing novels had passed 
from me. Not improbably, however, these pages may 
be printed first. 

In 1866 and 1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset was 
brought out by George Smith in sixpenny monthly 
numbers. I do not know that this mode of publication 
had been tried before, or that it answered very well 
on this occasion. Indeed the shilling magazines had 
interfered greatly with the success of novels published 
in numbers without other accompanying matter. The 
public finding that so much might be had for a shilling, 
in which a portion of one or more novels was always 
included, were unwilling to spend their money on the 
novel alone. Feeling that this certainly had become 
the case in reference to novels published in shilling 
numbers, Mr. Smith and I determined to make the 
experiment with sixpenny parts. As he paid me £3000 
for the use of my MS., the loss, if any, did not fall 
upon me. If I remember right, the enterprise was not 
altogether successful. 

Taking it as a whole, I regard this as the best novel 
I have written. I was never quite satisfied with the 
development of the plot, which consisted in the loss of a 
cheque, of a charge made against a clergyman for steal- 
ing it, and of absolute uncertainty on the part of the 
clergyman himself as to the manner in which the 
cheque had found its way into his hands. I cannot 
quite make myself believe that even such a man as 



THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET 239 

Mr. Crawley could have forgotten how he got it; 
nor would the generous friend who was anxious to 
supply his wants have supplied them by tendering 
the cheque of a third person. Such fault I acknowl- 
edge, — acknowledging at the same time that I have 
never been capable of constructing with complete 
success the intricacies of a plot that required to be 
unravelled. But while confessing so much, I claim to 
have portrayed the mind of the unfortunate man with 
great accuracy and great delicacy. The pride, the 
humility, the manliness, the weakness, the conscientious 
rectitude and bitter prejudices of Mr. Crawley were, 
I feel, true to nature and well described. The sur- 
roundings too are good. Mrs. Proudie at the palace 
is a real woman; and the poor old dean dying at the 
deanery is also real. The archdeacon in his victory 
is very real. There is a true savour of English country 
life all through the book. It was with many misgivings 
that I killed my old friend Mrs. Proudie. I could not, 
I think, have done it, but for a resolution taken and 
declared under circumstances of great momentary 
pressure. 

It was thus that it came about. I was sitting one 
morning at work upon the novel at the end of the 
long drawing-room of the Athenseum Club, — as was 
then m.y wont when I had slept the previous night in 
London. As I was there, two clergymen, each with 
a magazine in his hand, seated themselves, one on one 
side of the fire and one on the other, close to me. They 
soon began to abuse what they were reading, and each 
was reading some part of some novel of mine. The 
gravamen of their complaint lay in the fact that I 
reintroduced the same characters so often ! " Here," 
said one, "is that archdeacon whom we have had in 



240 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

every novel he has ever written." " And here," said 
the other, " is the old duke whom he has talked about 
till everybody is tired of him. If I could not invent 
new characters, I would not write novels at all." Then 
one of them fell foul of Mrs. Proudie. It was impos- 
sible for me not to hear their words, and almost 
impossible to hear them and be quiet. I got up, and 
standing between them, I acknowledged myself to be 
the culprit. " As to Mrs. Proudie," I said, " I will 
go home and kill her before the week is over." And 
so I did. The two gentlemen were utterly confounded, 
and one of them begged me to forget his frivolous 
observations. 

I have sometimes regretted the deed, so great was 
my delight in writing about Mrs. Proudie, so thorough 
was my knowledge of all the shades of her character. 
It was not only that she was a tyrant, a bully, a 
would-be priestess, a very vulgar woman, and one who 
would send headlong to the nethermost pit all who 
disagreed with her; but that at the same time she was 
conscientious, by no means a hypocrite, really believing 
in the brimstone which she threatened, and anxious to 
save the souls around her from its horrors. And as her 
tyranny increased so did the bitterness of the moments 
of her repentance increase, in that she knew herself 
to be a tyrant, — till that bitterness killed her. Since 
her time others have grown up equally dear to me, — 
Lady Glencora and her husband, for instance; but I 
have never dissevered myself from Mrs. Proudie, and 
•still live much in company with her ghost. 

I have in a previous chapter said how I wrote Can 
You Forgive Her? after the plot of a play which 
had been rejected, — which play had been called The 
Noble Jilt. Some year or two after the completion of 



LEAVING THE POST OFFICE 24I 

The Last Chronicle, I was asked by the manager of 
a theatre to prepare a piece for his stage, and I did 
so, taking the plot of this novel. I called the comedy 
Did He Steal Itf But my friend the manager did not 
approve of my attempt. My mind at this time was 
less attentive to such a matter than when dear old 
George Bartley nearly crushed me by his criticism, — 
so that I forget the reason given. I have little doubt 
but that the manager was right. That he intended 
to express a true opinion, and would have been glad 
to have taken the piece had he thought it suitable, I 
am quite sure. 

I have sometimes wished to see during my lifetime 
a combined republication of those tales which are 
occupied with the fictitious county of Barsetshire. 
These would be The Warden, Barchester Towers, 
Doctor Thome, Framley Parsonage, and The Last 
Chronicle of Barset. But I have hitherto failed. The 
copyrights are in the hands of four different persons, 
including myself, and with one of the four I have not 
been able to prevail to act in concert with the others. 1 

In 1867 I made up my mind to take a step in life 
which was not unattended with peril, which many 
would call rash, and which, when taken, I should be 
sure at some period to regret. This step was the 
resignation of my place in the Post Office. I have 
described how it was that I contrived to combine the 
performance of its duties with my other avocations 
in life. I got up always very early; but even this did 
not suffice. I worked always on Sundays, — as to which 
no scruple of religion made me unhappy, — and not 

* Since this was written I have made arrangements for 
doing as I have wished, and the first volume of the series 
will now very shortly be published. 



242 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

unfrequently I was driven to work at night. In the 
winter when hunting was going on, I had to keep 
myself very much on the alert. And during the London 
season, when I was generally two or three days of 
the week in town, I found the official work to be a 
burden. I had determined some years previously, after 
due consideration with my wife, to abandon the Post 
Office when I had put by an income equal to the 
pension to which I should be entitled if I remained in 
the department till I was sixty. That I had now done, 
and I sighed for liberty. 

The exact time chosen, the autumn of 1867, was 
selected because I was then about to undertake other 
literary work in editing a new magazine, — of which 
I shall speak very shortly. But in addition to these 
reasons there was another, which was, I think, at last 
the actuating cause. When Sir Rowland Hill left 
the Post Office, and my brother-in-law, Mr. Tilley, 
became Secretary in his place, I applied for the 
vacant office of Under-Secretary. Had I obtained this 
I should have given up my hunting, have given up 
much of my literary work, — at any rate would have 
edited no magazine, — and would have returned to the 
habit of my youth in going daily to the General Post 
Office. There was very much against such a change 
in life. The increase of salary would not have 
amounted to above £400 a year, and I should have lost 
much more than that in literary remuneration. I 
should have felt bitterly the slavery of attendance at 
an office, from which I had then been exempt for 
five-and-twenty years. I should, too, have greatly 
missed the sport which I loved. But I was attached 
to the department, had imbued myself with a thorough 
love of letters, — I mean the letters which are carried 



LEAVING THE POST OFFICE 243 

by the post, — and was anxious for their welfare as 
though they were all my own. In short, I wished to 
continue the connection. I did not wish, moreover, 
that any younger officer should again pass over my head. 
I believed that I had been a valuable public servant, 
and I will own to a feeling existing at that time that 
I had not altogether been well treated. I was probably 
wrong in this. I had been allowed to hunt, — and to 
do as I pleased, and to say what I liked, and had in that 
way received my reward. I applied for the office, but 
Mr. Scudamore was appointed to it. He no doubt 
was possessed of gifts which I did not possess. He 
understood the manipulation of money and the use of 
figures, and was a great accountant. I think that I 
might have been more useful in regard to the labours 
and wages of the immense body of men employed 
by the Post Office. However, Mr. Scudamore was 
appointed; and I made up my mind that I would fall 
back upon my old intention, and leave the department. 
I think I allowed two years to pass before I took the 
step; and the day on which I sent the letter was to 
me most melancholy. 

The rule of the service in regard to pensions is very 
just. A man shall serve till he is sixty before he is 
entitled to a pension, — unless his health fail him. At 
that age he is entitled to one-sixtieth of his salary for 
every year he has served up to forty years. If his 
health do fail him so that he is unfit for further work 
before the age named, then he may go with a pension 
amounting to one-sixtieth for every year he has served. 
I could not say that my health had failed me, and 
therefore I went without any pension. I have since 
felt occasionally that it has been supposed that I left 
<he Post Office under pressure, — because I attended to 



244 ^N AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

hunting and to my literary work rather than to postal 
matters. As it had for many years been my ambition 
to be a thoroughly good servant to the public, and to 
give to the public much more than I took in the shape 
of salary, this feeling has sometimes annoyed me. And 
as I am still a little sore on the subject, and as I would 
not have it imagined after my death that I had 
slighted the public service to which I belonged, I will 
venture here to give the reply which was sent to the 
letter containing my resignation. 

" General Post Office, 
October gth, 1867. 

" Sir, — I have received your letter of the 3d inst., 
in which you tender your resignation as Surveyor in 
the Post Office service, and state as your reason for 
this step that you have adopted another profession, 
the exigencies of which are so great as to make you 
feel you cannot give to the duties of the Post Office 
that amount of attention which you consider the Post- 
master-General has a right to expect. 

" You have for many years ranked among the most 
conspicuous members of the Post Office, which, on 
several occasions when you have been employed on 
large and difficult matters, has reaped much benefit 
from the great abilities which you have been able to 
place at its disposal; and in mentioning this, I have 
been especially glad to record that, notwithstanding 
the many calls upon your time, you have never per- 
mitted your other avocations to interfere with your 
Post Office work, which has been faithfully and indeed 
energetically performed." (There was a touch of 
irony in this word " energetically," but still it did not 
displease me.) 



LEAVING THE POST OFFICE 245 

" In accepting your resignation, which he does with 
much regret, the Duke of Montrose desires me to 
convey to you his own sense of the value of your 
services, and to state how alive he is to the loss which 
will be sustained by the department in which you have 
long been an ornament, and where your place will 
with difficulty be replaced. 

(Signed) "J. Tilley/' 

Readers will no doubt think that this is official 
flummery; and so in fact it is. I do not at all imagine 
that I was an ornament to the Post Office, and have 
no doubt that the secretaries and assistant-secretaries 
very often would have been glad to be rid of me; but 
the letter may be taken as evidence that I did not 
allow my literary enterprises to interfere with my 
official work. A man who takes public money without 
earning it is to me so odious that I can find no pardon 
for him in my heart. I have known many such, and 
some who have craved the power to do so. Nothing 
would annoy me more than to think that I should even 
be supposed to have been among the number. 

And so my connection was dissolved with the depart- 
ment to which I had applied the thirty-three best years 
of my life; — I must not say devoted, for devotion 
implies an entire surrender, and I certainly had found 
time for other occupations. It is however absolutely 
true that during all those years I had thought very 
much more about the Post Office than I had of my 
literary work, and had given to it a more unflagging 
attention. Up to this time I had never been angry, 
never felt myself injured or unappreciated in that my 
literary efforts were slighted. But I had suffered very 
much bitterness on that score in reference to the 



246 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Post Office; and I had suffered not only on my own 
personal behalf, but also and more bitterly when I 
could not promise to be done the things which I 
thought ovght to be done for the benefit of others. 
That the public in little villages should be enabled 
to buy postage stamps; that they should have their 
letters delivered free and at an early hour; that pillar 
letter-boxes should be put up for them (of which 
accommodation in the streets and ways of England 
I was the originator, having, however, got the authority 
for the erection of the first at St. Heliers in Jersey) ; 
that the letter-carriers and sorters should not be over- 
worked; that they should be adequately paid, and have 
some hours to themselves, especially on Sundays ; above 
all, that they should be made to earn their wages; 
and latterly that they should not be crushed by what 
I thought to be the damnable system of so-called meiiti 
— these were the matters by which I was stirred to what 
the secretary was pleased to call energetic perform- 
ance of my duties. How I loved, when I was contra- 
dicted, — as I was very often and, no doubt, very 
properly, — to do instantly as I was bid, and then to 
prove that what I was doing was fatuous, dishonest, 
expensive, and impracticable ! And then there were 
feuds — such delicious feuds ! I was always an anti- 
Hillite, acknowledging, indeed, the great thing which 
Sir Rowland Hill had done for the country, but believ- 
ing him to be entirely unfit to manage men or to 
arrange labour. It was a pleasure to me to differ from 
him on all occasions; — and, looking back now, I think 
that in all such differences I was right. 

Having so steeped myself, as it were, in postal, 
waters, I could not go out from them without a regret.. 
I wonder whether I did anything to improve the styV- 



LEAVING THE POST OFFICE 247 

of writing in official reports ! I strove to do so gal- 
lantly, never being contented with the language of my 
own reports unless it seemed to have been so written 
as to be pleasant to be read. I took extreme delight in 
writing them, not allowing myself to re-copy them, 
never having them re-copied by others, but sending them 
up with their original blots and erasures, — if blots and 
erasures there were. It is hardly manly, I think, that 
a man should search after a fine neatness at the ex- 
pense of so much waste labour; or that he should not 
be able to exact from himself the necessity of writing 
words in the form in which they should be read. If a 
copy be required, let it be taken afterwards, — by hand 
or by machine, as may be. But the writer of a letter, 
if he wish his words to prevail with the reader, should 
send them out as written by himself, by his own hand, 
with his own marks, his own punctuation, correct or 
incorrect, with the evidence upon them that they have 
come out from his own mind. 

And so the cord was cut, and I was a free man to 
run about the world where I would. 

A little before the date of my resignation, Mr. James 
Virtue, the printer and publisher, had asked me to edit 
a new magazine for him, and had offered me a salary 
of £1000 a year for the work over and above what 
might be due to me for my own contributions. I had 
known something of magazines, and did not believe 
that they were generally very lucrative. They were, 
I thought, useful to some publishers as bringing grist 
to the mill; but as Mr. Virtue's business was chiefly 
that of a printer, in which he was very successful, this 
consideration could hardly have had much weight with 
him. I very strongly advised him to abandon the pro- 
ject, pointing out to him that a large expenditure would 



248 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

be necessary to carry on the magazine in accordance 
with my views, — that I could not be concerned in it on 
any other understanding, and that the chances of an 
adequate return to him of his money were very small. 
He came down to Waltham, listened to my arguments 
with great patience, and then told me that if I would 
not do the work he would find some other editor. 

Upon this I consented to undertake the duty. My 
terms as to salary were those which he had himself 
proposed. The special stipulations which I demanded 
were: firstly, that I should put whatever I pleased into 
the magazine, or keep whatever I pleased out of it, 
without interference; secondly, that I should, from 
month to month, give in to him a list of payments to 
be made to contributors, and that he should pay them, 
allowing me to fix the amounts; and, thirdly, that the 
arrangement should remain in force, at any rate, for 
two years. To all this he made no objection; and 
during the time that he and I were thus bound together 
he not only complied with these stipulations, but also 
with every suggestion respecting the magazine that I 
made to him. If the use of large capital, combined 
with wide liberality and absolute confidence on the part 
of the proprietor, and perpetual good humour, would 
have produced success, our magazine certainly would 
have succeeded. 

In all such enterprises the name is the first difficulty. 
There is the name which has a meaning and the name 
which has none — of which two the name that has none 
is certainly the better, as it never belies itself. The 
Liberal may cease to be liberal, or The Fortnightly, 
alas ! to come out once a fortnight. But The Cornhill 
and The Argosy are under any set of circumstances as 
well adapted to these names as under any other. Then 



" ST. Paul's magazine " 249 

there is the proprietary name, or, possibly, the editorial 
name, which is only amiss because the publication may 
change hands. Blackwood's has, indeed, always re- 
mained Blackwood's, and Eraser's, though it has been 
bought and sold, still does not sound amiss. Mr. 
Virtue, fearing the too attractive qualities of his own 
name, wished the magazine to be called Anthony Trol- 
lope's. But to this I objected eagerly. There were 
then about the town, — still are about the town, — two 
or three literary gentlemen, by whom to have had 
myself editored would have driven me an exile from 
my country. After much discussion, we settled on St. 
Paul's as the name for our bantling — not as being in 
any way new, but as enabling it to fall easily into the 
ranks with many others. If we were to make our- 
selves in any way peculiar, it was not by our name that 
we were desirous of doing so. 

I do not think that we did make ourselves in any 
way peculiar, — and yet there was a great struggle 
made. On the part of the proprietor, I may say that 
money was spent very freely. On my own part, I 
may declare that I omitted nothing which I thought 
might tend to success. I read all manuscripts sent to 
me, and endeavoured to judge impartially. I succeeded 
in obtaining the services of an excellent literary corps. 
During the three years and a half of my editorship I 
was assisted by Mr. Goschen, Captain Brackenbury, 
Edward Dicey, Percy Fitzgerald, H. A. Layard, All- 
ingham, Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Lynn Linton, my brother, 
T. A. TroUope, and his wife, Charles Lever, E. Arnold, 
Austin Dobson, R. A. Proctor, Lady Pollock, G. H. 
Lewes, C. Mackay, Hardman (of the Times), George 
Macdonald, W. R. Greg, Mrs. OHphant, Sir Charles 
Trevelyan, Leoni Levi, Dutton Cook — and others, 



250 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

whose names would make the list too long. It might 
have been thought that with such aid the St. Paul's 
would have succeeded. I do not think that the fail- 
ure, — for it did fail, — arose from bad editing. Perhaps 
too much editing might have been the fault. I was too 
anxious to be good, and did not enough think of what 
might be lucrative. 

It did fail, for it never paid its way. It reached, if 
I remember right, a circulation of nearly 10,000 — per- 
haps on one or two occasions may have gone beyond 
that. But the enterprise had been set on foot on a 
system too expensive to be made lucrative by anything 
short of a very large circulation. Literary merit will 
hardly set a magazine afloat, though, when afloat, it 
will sustain it. Time is wanted — or the hubbub, and 
flurry, and excitement created by ubiquitous sesqui- 
pedalian advertisement. Merit and time together may 
be effective, but they must be backed by economy and 
patience. 

I think, upon the whole, that publishers themselves 
have been the best editors of magazines, when they 
have been able to give time and intelligence to the 
work. Nothing certainly has ever been done better 
than Blackwood's. The Cornhill, too, after Thackeray 
had left it and before Leslie Stephen had taken it, 
seemed to be in quite efficient hands — those hands 
being the hands of proprietor and publisher. The pro- 
prietor, at any rate, knows what he wants and what 
he can afford, and is not so frequently tempted to fall 
into that worst of literary quicksands, the publishing 
of matter not for the sake of the readers, but for that 
of the writer. I did not so sin very often, but often 
enough to feel that I was a coward. " My dear friend, 
my dear friend, this is trash ! " It is so hard to speak 



251 

thus — but so necessary for an editor ! We all remem- 
ber the thorn in his pillow of which Thackeray com- 
plained. Occasionally I know that I did give way on 
behalf of some literary aspirant whose work did not 
represent itself to me as being good; and as often as I 
did so, I broke my trust to those who employed me. 
Now, I think that such editors as Thackeray and my- 
self, — if I may, for the moment, be allowed to couple 
men so unequal, — will always be liable to commit such 
faults, but that the natures of publishers and propri- 
etors will be less soft. 

Nor do I know why the pages of a magazine should 
be considered to be open to any aspirant who thinks 
that he can write an article, or why the manager of a 
magazine should be doomed to read all that may be 
sent to him. The object of the proprietor is to pro- 
duce a periodical that shall satisfy the public, which he 
may probably best do by securing the services of 
writers of acknowledged ability. 



CHAPTER XVI 

BEVERLEY 

Very early in life, very soon after I had become a 
clerk in St. Martin's le Grand, when I was utterly impe- 
cunious and beginning to fall grievously into debt, I 
was asked by an uncle of mine, who was himself a 
clerk in the War Office, what destination I should like 
best for my future life. He probably meant to inquire 
whether I wished to live married or single, whether 
to remain in the Post Office or to leave it, whether 1 
should prefer the town or the country. I replied that I 
should like to be a Member of Parliament. My uncle, 
who was given to sarcasm, rejoined that, as far as 
he knew, few clerks in the Post Office did become 
Members of Parliament. I think it was the remem- 
brance of this jeer which stirred me up to look for a 
seat as soon as I had made myself capable of holding 
one by leaving the public service. My uncle was dead, 
but if I could get a seat, the knowledge that I had 
done so might travel to that bourne from whence he was 
not likely to return, and he might there feel that he 
had done me wrong. 

Independently of this, I have always thought that to 
sit in the British Parliament should be the highest 
object of ambition to every educated Englishman. I 
do not by this mean to suggest that every educated 
Englishman should set before himself a seat in Par- 
liament as a probable or even a possible career; but 
that the man in Parliament has reached a higher posi- 
252 



BEVERLEY 253 

tion than the man out, — that to serve one's country 
without pay is the grandest work that a man can do, — 
that of all studies the study of politics is the one in 
which a man may make himself most useful to his 
fellow-creatures, — and that of all lives, public political 
lives are capable of the highest efforts. So thinking, — 
though I was aware that fifty-three was too late an age 
at which to commence a new career, — I resolved with 
much hesitation that I would make the attempt. 

V/riting now at an age beyond sixty, I can say that 
my political feelings and convictions have never under- 
gone any change. They are now what they became 
when I first began to have political feelings and con- 
victions. Nor do I find in myself any tendency to 
modify them as I have found generally in men as they 
grow old. I consider myself to be an advanced, but 
still a Conservative-Liberal, which I regard not only as 
a possible, but as a rational and consistent phase of 
political existence. I can, I believe, in a very few 
words, make known my political theory; and, as I am 
anxious that any who know aught of me should know 
that, I will endeavour to do so. 

It must, I think, be painful to all men to feel inferi- 
ority. It should, I think, be a matter of some pain to 
all men to feel superiority, unless when it has been won 
by their own efforts. We do not understand the opera- 
tions of Almighty wisdom, and are, therefore, unable 
to tell the causes of the terrible inequalities that we 
see — why some, why so many, should have so little to 
make life enjoyable, so much to make it painful, while 
a few others, not through their own merit, have had 
gifts poured out to them from a full hand. We acknowl- 
edge the hand of God and His wisdom, but still we are 
struck with awe and horror at the misery of many of 



254 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

our brethren. We who have been born to the superior 
condition, — for, in this matter, I consider myself to be 
standing on a platform with dukes and princes, and all 
others to whom plenty and education and liberty have 
been given, — cannot, I think, look upon the inane, unin- 
tellectual, and tossed-bound life of those who cannot 
even feed themselves sufficiently by their sweat, with- 
out some feeling of injustice, some feeling of pain. 

This consciousness of wrong has induced in many 
enthusiastic but unbalanced minds a desire to set all 
things right by a proclaimed equality. In their efforts 
such men have shown how powerless they are in 
opposing the ordinances of the Creator. For the mind 
of the thinker and the student is driven to admit, 
though it be awestruck by apparent injustice, that this 
inequality is the work of God. Make all men equal 
to-day, and God has so created them that they shall 
be all unequal to-morrow. The so-called Conservative, 
the conscientious, philanthropic Conservative, seeing 
this, and being surely convinced that such inequalities 
are of divine origin, tells himself that it is his duty to 
preserve them. He thinks that the preservation of 
the welfare of the world depends on the- maintenance 
of those distances between the prince and the peasant 
by which he finds himself to be surrounded; and, per- 
haps, I may add, that the duty is not unpleasant, as he 
feels himself to be one of the princes. 

But this man, though he sees something, and sees 
that very clearly, sees only a little. The divine inequal- 
ity is apparent to him, but not the equally divine dimi- 
nution of that inequality. That such diminution is 
taking place on all sides is apparent enough; but it is 
apparent to him as an evil, the consummation of which 
it is his duty to retard. He cannot prevent it; and. 



BEVERLEY 255 

therefore, the society to which he belongs is, in his 
eyes, retrograding. He will even, at times, assist it; 
and will do so conscientiously, feeling that, under the 
gentle pressure supplied by him, and with the drags 
and holdfasts which he may add, the movement would 
be slower than it would become if subjected to his pro- 
claimed and absolute opponents. Such, I think, are 
Conservatives; and I speak of men who, with the fear 
of God before their eyes and the love of their neigh- 
bours warm in their hearts, endeavour to do their duty 
to the best of their ability. 

Using the term which is now common, and which 
will be best understood, I will endeavour to explain 
how the equally conscientious Liberal is opposed to the 
Conservative. He is equally aware that these distances 
are of divine origin, equally averse to any sudden dis- 
ruption of society in quest of some Utopian blessed- 
ness; but he is alive to the fact that these distances 
are day by day becoming less, and he regards this con- 
tinual diminution as a series of steps towards that 
human millennium of which he dreams. He is even 
willing to help the many to ascend the ladder a little, 
though he knows, as they come up towards him, he 
must go down to meet them. What is really in his 
mind is, — I will not say equality, for the word is offen- 
sive, and presents to the imagination of men ideas of 
communism, of ruin, and insane democracy, — but a 
tendency towards equality. In following that, how- 
ever, he knows that he must be hemmed in by safe- 
guards, lest he be tempted to travel too quickly; and, 
therefore, he is glad to be accompanied on his way by 
the repressive action of a Conservative opponent. 
Holding such views, I think I am guilty of no absurdity 
in calling myself an advanced Conservative-Liberal. A 



256 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

man who entertains in his mind any political doctrine, 
except as a means of improving the condition of his 
fellows, I regard as a political intriguer, a charlatan, 
and a conjurer — as one who thinks that, by a certain 
amount of wary wire-pulling, he may raise himself in 
the estimation of the world. 

I am aware that this theory of politics will seem to 
many to be stilted, overstrained, and, as the Americans 
would say, high-faluten. Many will declare that the 
majority even of those who call themselves politi- 
cians, — perhaps even of those who take an active part 
in politics, — are stirred by no such feelings as these, 
and acknowledge no such motives. Men become Tories 
or Whigs, Liberals or Conservatives, partly by educa- 
tion, — following their fathers, — partly by chance, 
partly as openings come, partly in accordance with the 
bent of their minds, but still without any far-fetched 
reasonings as to distances and the diminution of 
distances. No doubt it is so; and in the battle of 
politics, as it goes, men are led further and further 
away from first causes, till at last a measure is 
opposed by one simply because it is advocated by 
another, and Members of Parliament swarm into lob- 
bies, following the dictation of their leaders, and not 
their own individual judgments. But the principle is 
at work throughout. To many, though hardly acknowl- 
edged, it is still apparent. On almost all it has its 
effect; though there are the intriguers, the clever con- 
jurers, to whom politics is simply such a game as is 
billiards or rackets, only played with greater results. 
To the minds that create and lead and sway political 
opinion, some such theory is, I think, ever present. 

The truth of all this I had long since taken home to 
myself. I had now been thinking of it for thirty years, 



BEVERLEY 257 

and had never doubted. But I had always been aware 
of a certain visionary weakness about myself in regard 
to politics. A man, to be useful in Parliament, must 
be able to confine himself and conform himself, to be 
satisfied with doing a little bit of a little thing at a 
time. He must patiently get up everything connected 
with the duty on mushrooms, and then be satisfied with 
himself when at last he has induced a Chancellor of 
the Exchequer to say that he will consider the impost 
at the first opportunity. He must be content to be 
beaten six times in order that, on a seventh, his work 
may be found to be of assistance to some one else. He 
must remember that he is one out of 650, and be con- 
tent with i-65oth part of the attention of the nation. If 
he have grand ideas, he must keep them to himself, 
unless by chance, he can work his way up to the top 
of the tree. In short, he must be a practical man. Now 
I knew that in politics I could never become a practical 
man. I should never be satisfied with a soft word from 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would always be 
flinging my overtaxed ketchup in his face. 

Nor did it seem to me to be possible that I should 
ever become a good speaker. I had no special gifts 
that way, and had not studied the art early enough in 
life to overcome natural difficulties. I had found that, 
with infinite labour, I could learn a few sentences by 
heart, and deliver them, monotonously indeed, but 
clearly. Or, again, if there were something special to 
be said, I could say it in a commonplace fashion — but 
always as though I were in a hurry, and with the fear 
before me of being thought to be prolix. But I had no 
power of combining, as a public speaker should always 
do, that which I had studied with that which occurred 
to me at the moment. It must be all lesson, — which I 



258 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

found to be best; or else all impromptu, — which was 
very bad, indeed, unless I had something special on my 
mind. I was thus aware that I could do no good by 
going into Parliament — that the time for it, if there 
could have been a time, had gone by. But still I had 
an almost insane desire to sit there, and be able to 
assure myself that my uncle's scorn had not been 
deserved. 

In 1867 it had been suggested to me that, in the 
event of a dissolution, I should stand for one division 
of the County of Essex; and I had promised that I 
would do so, though the promise at that time was as 
rash a one as a man could make. I was instigated to 
this by the late Charles Buxton, a man whom I greatly 
loved, and who was very anxious that the county for 
which his brother had sat, and with which the family 
were connected, should be relieved from what he re- 
garded as the thraldom of Toryism. But there was no 
dissolution then. Mr. Disraeli passed his Reform Bill, 
by the help of the Liberal member for Newark, and 
the summoning of a new Parliament was postponed till 
the next year. By this new Reform Bill Essex was 
portioned out into three instead of two electoral divi- 
sions, one of which, — that adjacent to London,— would, 
it was thought, be altogether Liberal. After the prom- 
ise which I had given, the performance of which would 
have cost me a large sum of money absolutely in vain, 
it was felt by some that I should be selected as one of 
the candidates for the new division — and as such I 
was proposed by Mr. Charles Buxton. But another 
gentleman, who would have been bound by previous 
pledges to support me, was put forward by what I be- 
lieve to have been the defeating interest, and I had to 
give way. At the election this gentleman, with another 



BEVERLEY 259 

Liberal, who had often stood for the county, was re- 
turned without a contest. Alas! alas! They were 
both unseated at the next election, when the great 
Conservative reaction took place. 

In the spring of 1868 I was sent to the United States 
on a postal mission, of which I will speak presently. 
While I was absent the dissolution took place. On 
my return I was somewhat too late to look out for 
a seat, but I had friends who knew the weakness of 
my ambition; and it was not likely, therefore, that I 
should escape the peril of being put forward for some 
impossible borough as to which the Liberal party 
would not choose that it should go to the Conservatives 
without a struggle. At last, after one or two others, 
Beverley was proposed to me, and to Beverley I went. 

I must, however, exculpate the gentleman who acted 
as my agent, from undue persuasion exercised towards 
me. He was a man who thoroughly understood Par- 
liament, having sat there himself — and he sits there 
now at this moment. He understood Yorkshire, — or, 
at least, the East Riding of Yorkshire, in which Bev- 
erley is situated, — certainly better than any one alive. 
He understood all the mysteries of canvassing, and he 
knew well the traditions, the condition, and the prospect 
of the Liberal party. I will not give his name, but they 
who knew Yorkshire in 1868 will not be at a loss to 
find it. " So," said he, " you are going to stand for 
Beverley ? " I replied gravely that I was thinking of 
doing so. " You don't expect to get in ? " he said. 
Again I was grave. I would not, I said, be sanguine, 
but, nevertheless, I was disposed to hope for the best. 
" Oh, no ! " continued he, with good-humoured raillery, 
"you won't get in. I don't suppose you really expect 
it. But there is a fine career open to you. You will 



26o AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Spend fiooo, and lose the election. Then you will 
petition, and spend another £1000. You will throw 
out the elected members. There will be a commission, 
and the borough will be disfranchised. For a beginner 
such as you are, that will be a great success." And 
yet, in the teeth of this, from a man who knew all 
about it, I persisted in going to Beverley ! 

The borough, which returned two members, had long 
been represented by Sir Henry Edwards, of whom, I 
think, I am justified in saying that he had contracted a 
close intimacy with it for the sake of the seat. There 
had been many contests, many petitions, many void 
elections, many members, but, through it all. Sir Henry 
had kept his seat, if not with permanence, yet with a 
fixity of tenure next door to permanence. I fancy that 
with a little management between the parties the bor- 
ough might at this time have returned a member of 
each colour quietly; but there were spirits there who 
did not love political quietude, and it was at last de- 
cided that there should be two Liberal and two Con- 
servative candidates. Sir Henry was joined by a young 
man of fortune in quest of a seat, and I was grouped 
with Mr. Maxwell, the eldest son of Lord Herries, a 
Scotch Roman Catholic peer, who lives in the neigh- 
bourhood. 

When the time came I went down to canvass, and 
spent, I think, the most wretched fortnight of my man- 
hood. In the first place, I was subject to a bitter 
tyranny from grinding vulgar tyrants. They were 
doing what they could, or said that they were doing 
so, to secure me a seat in Parliament, and I was to be 
in their hands, at any rate, the period of my can- 
didature. On one day both of us, Mr. Maxwell and I, 
wanted to go out hunting. We proposed to ourselves 



BEVERI.EY 26 1 

but the one holiday during this period of intense labour ; 
but I was assured, as was he also, by a publican who 
was working for us, that if we committed such a crime 
he and all Beverley would desert us. From morning 
to evening every day I was taken round the lanes and 
by-ways of that uninteresting town, canvassing every 
voter, exposed to the rain, up to my knees in slush, and 
utterly unable to assume that air of triumphant joy 
with which a jolly, successful candidate should be in- 
vested. At night, every night I had to speak some- 
where, — which was bad; and to listen to the speaking 
of others, — which was much worse. When, on one 
Sunday, I proposed to go to the Minster Church, I was 
told that was quite useless, as the Church party we"e 
all certain to support Sir Henry ! " Indeed," said the 
publican, my tyrant, " he goes there in a kind of official 
profession, and you had better not allow yourself to be 
seen in the same place." So I stayed away and omitted 
my prayers. No Church of England church in Bev- 
erley would on such an occasion have welcomed a 
Liberal candidate. I felt myself to be a kind of pariah 
in the borough, to whom was opposed all that was 
pretty, and all that was nice, and all that was — 
ostensibly — good. 

But perhaps my strongest sense of discomfort arose 
from the conviction that my political ideas were all 
leather and prunella to the men whose votes I was 
soliciting. They cared nothing for my doctrines, and 
could not be made to understand that I should have 
any. I had been brought to Beverley either to beat 
Sir Henry Edwards, — which, however, no one prob- 
ably thought to be feasible, — or to cause him the 
greatest possible amount of trouble, inconvenience, and 
expense. There were, indeed, two points on which 



262 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

a portion of my wished-for supporters seemed to have 
opinions, and on both these two points I was driven 
by my opinions to oppose them. Some were anxious 
for the Ballot, — which had not then become law, — 
and some desired the Permissive Bill. I hated, and 
do hate, both these measures, thinking it to be 
unworthy of a great people to free itself from the 
evil results of vicious conduct by unmanly restraints. 
Undue influence on voters is a great evil from which 
this country had already done much to emancipate 
itself by extending electoral divisions and by an 
increase of independent feeling. These, I thought, 
and not secret voting, were the weapons by which 
electoral intimidation should be overcome. And as 
for drink, I believe in no Parlimentary restraint; but 
I do believe in the gradual effect of moral teaching and 
education. But a Liberal, to do any good at Beverley, 
should have been able to swallow such gnats as those. 
I would swallow nothing, and was altogether the 
wrong man. 

I knew, from the commencement of my candidature, 
how it would be. Of course that well-trained gentle- 
man who condescended to act as my agent, had under- 
stood the case, and I ought to have taken his thoroughly 
kind advice. He had seen it all, and had told himself 
that it was wrong that one so innocent in such ways 
as I, so utterly unable to fight such a battle, should 
be carried down into Yorkshire merely to spend money 
and to be annoyed. He could not have said more 
than he did say, and I suffered for my obstinacy. Of 
course I was not elected. Sir Henry Edwards and 
his comrade became members for Beverley, and I 
was at the bottom of the poll. I paid £400 for my 
expenses, and then returned to London. 



BEVERLEY 263 

My friendly agent in his raillery had of course 
exaggerated the cost. He had, when I arrived at 
Beverley, asked me for a cheque for £400, and told 
me that t'nat sum would suffice. It did suffice. How 
it came to pass that exactly that sum should be 
required «T never knew, but such was the case. Then 
there came a petition, — not from me, but from the 
town. The inquiry was made, the two gentlemen 
were unseated, the borough was disfranchised. Sir 
Henry Edwards was put on his trial for some kind 
of Parliamentary offence and was acquitted. In this 
way Beverley's privilege as a borough and my Parlia- 
mentary ambition were brought to an end at the same 
time. 

When I knew the result I did not altogether regret 
it. It may be that Beverley might have been brought 
to political confusion and Sir Henry Edwards rele- 
gated to private life without the expenditure of my 
hard-earned money, and without that fortnight of 
misery; but connecting the things together, as it was 
natural that I should do, I did flatter myself that I 
had done some good. It had seemed to me that nothing 
could be worse, nothing more unpatriotic, nothing 
more absolutely opposed to the system of represent- 
ative government, than the time-honoured practices 
of the borough of Beverley. It had come to pass that 
political cleanliness was odious to the citizens. There 
was something grand in the scorn with which a lead- 
ing Liberal there turned up his nose at me when I 
told him that there should be no bribery, no treating, 
not even a pot of beer on one side. It was a matter 
for study to see how at Beverley politics were appre- 
ciated because they might subserve electoral purposes, 
and how little it was understood that electoral pur- 



264 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

poses, which are in themselves a nuisance, should be 
endured in order that they may subserve politics 
And then the time, the money, the mental energy, 
which had been expended in making the borough a 
secure seat for a gentleman who had realised the idea 
that it would become him to be a member of Parlia- 
ment! This use of the borough seemed to be realisea 
and approved in the borough generally. The inhab- 
itants had taught themselves to think that it was for 
such purposes that boroughs were intended ! To hav* 
assisted in putting an end to this, even in one town. 
was to a certain extent a satisfaction. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE AMERICAN POSTAL TREATY — THE QUESTION OF 
COPYRIGHT WITH AMERICA FOUR MORE NOVELS 

In the spring of 1868, — before the affair of Beverley, 
which, as being the first direct result of my resigna- 
tion of office, has been brought in a little out of its 
turn, — I was requested to go over to the United States 
and make a postal treaty at Washington. This, as 
I had left the service, I regarded as a compliment, 
and of course I went. It was my third visit to 
America, and I have made two since. As far as the 
Post Office work was concerned, it was very far from 
being agreeable. I found myself located at Washing- 
ton, a place I do not love, and was harassed by delays, 
annoyed by incompetence, and opposed by what I 
felt to be personal and not national views. I had 
to deal with two men, — with one who was a working 
officer of the American Post Office, than whom I have 
never met a more zealous, or, as far as I could judge, 
a more honest public servant. He had his views and 
I had mine, each of us having at heart the welfare 
of the service in regard to his own country, — each of 
us also having certain orders which we were bound 
to obey. But the other gentleman, who was in rank 
the superior, — whose executive position was dependent 
on his official status, as is the case with our own 
Ministers, — did not recommend himself to me equally. 
He would make appointments with me and then not 
keep them, which at last offended me so grievously, 
265 



266 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

that I declared at the Washington Post Office that if 
this treatment were continued, I would write home to 
say that any further action on my part was impossible. 
I think I should have done so had it not occurred 
to me that I might in this way serve his purpose 
rather than my own, or the purposes of those who 
had sent me. The treaty, however, was at last made, 
— the purport of which was, that everything possible 
should be done, at a heavy expenditure on the part 
of England, to expedite the mails from England to 
America, and that nothing should be done by America 
to expedite the mails from thence to us. The ex- 
pedition I believe to be now equal both ways; but 
it could not be maintained as it is without the pay- 
ment of a heavy subsidy from Great Britain, whereas 
no subsidy is paid by the States.^ 

I had also a commission from the Foreign Office, 
for which I had asked, to make an effort on behalf 
of an international copyright between the United 
States and Great Britain, — the want of which is the 
one great impediment to pecuniary success which still 
stands in the way of successful English authors. I 
cannot say that I have never had a shilling of Ameri- 
can money on behalf of reprints of my work; but I 
have been conscious of no such payment. Having 
found many years ago — in 1861, when I made a strug- 
gle on the subject, being then in the States, the details 
of which are sufficiently amusing2 — that I could not 

*This was a state of things which may probably have 
appeared to American politicians to be exactly that which 
they should try to obtain. The whole arrangement has 
again been altered since the time of which I have spoken. 

^ In answer to a question from myself, a certain Ameri- 
can publisher — he who usually reprinted my works — prom- 



THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT WITH AMERICA 267 

myself succeed in dealing with American booksellers, 
I have sold all foreign right to the English publishers; 
and though I do not know that I have raised my price 
against them on that score, I may in this way have 
had some indirect advantage from the American 
market. But I do know that what the publishers have 
received here is very trifling, I doubt whether Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall, my present publishers, get for 
early sheets sent to the States as much as 5 per cent, 
on the price they pay me for my manuscript. But 
the American readers are more numerous than the 
English, and taking them all through, are probably 
more wealthy. If I can get £1000 for a book here 
(exclusive of their market), I ought to be able to 
get as much there. If a man supply 600 customers 
with shoes in place of 300, there is no question as to 
such result. Why not, then, if I can supply 60,000 
readers instead of 30,000? 

I fancied that I knew that the opposition to an inter- 
national copyright was by no means an American 
feeling, but was confined to the bosoms of a few 
ised me that if any other American publisher republished 
my work on America before he had done so, he would 
not bring out a competing edition, though there would be 
no law to hinder him. I then entered into an agreement 
with another American publisher, stipulating to supply 
him with early sheets; and he stipulating to supply me 
a certain royalty on his sales, and to supply me with 
accounts half-yearly. I sent the sheets with energetic 
punctuality, and the work was brought out with equal 
energy and precision — by my old American publishers. 
The gentleman who made the promise had not broken his 
word. No other American edition had come out before 
his. I never got any account, and, of course, never 
received a dollar. 



268 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

interested Americans. All that I did and heard in 
reference to the subject on this further visit, — and 
having a certain authority from the British Secretary 
of State with me I could hear and do something, — 
altogether confirmed me in this view. I have no 
doubt that if I could poll American readers, or Ameri- 
can senators, — or even American representatives, if 
the polling could be unbiassed, — or American book- 
sellers,! that an assent to an international copyright 
would be the result. The state of things as it is is 
crushing to American authors, as the publishers will 
not pay them a liberal scale, knowing that they can 
supply their customers with modern English literature 
without paying for it. The English amount of pro- 
duction so much exceeds the American, that the rate 
at which the former can be published rules the market. 
It is equally injurious to American booksellers, — 
except to two or three of the greatest houses. No 
small man can now acquire the exclusive right of 
printing and selling an English book. If such a one 
attempt it, the work is printed instantly by one of the 
leviathans, — who alone are the gainers. The argu- 
ment of course is, that the American readers are the 
gainers, — that as they can get for nothing the use of 
certain property, they would be cutting their own 
throats were they to pass a law debarring themselves 
from the power of such appropriation. In this argu- 
ment all idea of honesty is thrown to the winds. It 
is not that they do not approve of a system of copy- 
right, — as many great men have disapproved, — for 
their own law of copyright is as stringent as is ours. 
^ I might also say American publishers, if I might count 
them by the number of heads, and not by the amount of 
work done by the firms. 



THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT WITH AMERICA 269 

A bold assertion is made that they like to appropriate 
the goods of other people; and that, as in this case, 
they can do so with impunity, they will continue to 
do so. But the argument, as far as I have been able 
to judge, comes not from the people, but from the 
bookselling leviathans, and from those politicians 
whom the leviathans are able to attach to their 
interests. The ordinary American purchaser is not 
much affected by slight variations in price. He is 
at any rate too high-hearted to be affected by the 
prospect of such variation. It is the man who wants 
to make money, not he who fears that he may be 
called upon to spend it, who controls such matters as 
this in the United States. It is the large speculator 
who becomes powerful in the lobbies of the House, 
and understands how wise it may be to incur a great 
expenditure either in the creation of a great business, 
or in protecting that which he has created from com- 
petition. Nothing was done in 1868, — and nothing 
has been done since (up to 1876). A Royal Com- 
mission on the law of copyright is now about to sit 
in this country, of which I have consented to be a 
member; and the question must then be handled, 
though nothing done by a Royal Commission here 
can effect American legislators. But I do believe that 
if the measure be consistently and judiciously urged, 
the enemies to it in the States will gradually be 
overcome. Some years since we had some quasi 
private meetings, under the presidency of Lord Stan- 
hope, in Mr. John Murray's dining-room, on the sub- 
ject of international copyright. At one of these I 
discussed this matter of American international copy- 
right with Charles Dickens, who strongly declared 
his conviction that nothing would induce an American 



270 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to give Up the power he possesses of pirating British 
literature. But he was a man who, seeing clearly 
what was before him, would not realise the possibility 
of shifting views. Because in this matter the Ameri- 
can decision had been, according to his thinking, 
dishonest, therefore no other than dishonest decision 
was to be expected from Americans. Against that idea 
I protested, and now protest. American dishonesty 
is rampant; but it is rampant only among a few. It 
is the great misfortune of the community that those 
few have been able to dominate so large a portion of 
the population among which all men can vote, but 
so few can understand for what they are voting. 

Since this was written the Commission on the law 
of copyright has sat and made its report. With the 
great body of it I agree, and could serve no reader 
by alluding here at length to matters which are dis- 
cussed there. But in regard to this question of inter- 
national copyright with the United States, I think 
that we were incorrect in the expression of an opinion 
that fair justice, — or justice approaching to fairness, 
— is now done by American publishers to English 
authors by payments made by them for early sheets. 
I have just found that £20 was paid to my publisher 
in England for the use of the early sheets of a novel 
for which I received £1600 in England. When asked 
why he accepted so little, he assured me that the firm 
with whom he dealt would not give more. "Why 
not go to another firm ? " I asked. No other firm 
would give a dollar, because no other firm would care 
to run counter to that great firm which had assumed 
to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon 
after received a copy of my own novel in the American 
form, and found that it was published for /Jd. That 



THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT WITH AMERICA 27 1 

a great sale was expected can be argued from the fact 
that without a great sale the paper and printing 
necessary for the republication of a three-volume 
novel could not be supplied. Many thousand copies 
must have been sold. But from these the author 
received not one shilling. I need hardly point out 
that the sum of £20 would not do more than com- 
pensate the publisher for his trouble in making the 
bargain. The publisher here no doubt might have 
refused to supply the early sheets, but he had no means 
of exacting a higher price than that offered. I men- 
tion the circumstance here because it has been boasted, 
on behalf of the American publishers, that though 
there is no international copyright, they deal so liber- 
ally with English authors as to make it unnecessary 
that the Enghsh author should be so protected. With 
the fact of the £20 just brought to my knowledge, 
and with the copy of my book published at y^d. now 
in my hands, I feel that an international copyright is 
very necessary for my protection. 

They among Englishmen who best love and most 
admire the United States, have felt themselves tempted 
to use the strongest language in denouncing the sins 
of Americans. Who can but love their personal 
generosity, their active and far-seeking philanthropy, 
their love of education, their hatred of ignorance, the 
general convictions in the minds of all of them that 
a man should be enabled to walk upright, fearing no 
one and conscious that he is responsible for his own 
actions? In what country have grander efforts been 
made by private munificence to relieve the sufferings 
of humanity? Where can the English traveller find 
any more anxious to assist him than the normal Ameri- 
can, when once the American shall have found the 



272 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Englishman to be neither sullen nor fastidious ? Who, 
lastly, is so much an object of heart-felt admiration 
of the American man and the American woman as 
the well-mannered and well-educated Englishwoman 
or Englishman? These are the ideas which I say 
spring uppermost in the minds of the unprejudiced 
English traveller as he makes acquaintance with 
these near relatives. Then he becomes cognisant of 
their official doings, of their politics, of their municipal 
scandals, of their great ring-robberies, of their lobby- 
ings and briberies, and the infinite baseness of their 
public life. There at the top of everything he finds 
the very men who are the least fit to occupy high 
places. American public dishonesty is so glaring that 
the very friends he has made in the country are not 
slow to acknowledge it, — speaking of public life as 
a thing apart from their own existence, as a state of 
dirt in which it would be an insult to suppose that 
they are concerned ! In the midst of it all the stranger, 
who sees so much that he hates and so much that he 
loves, hardly knows how to express himself. 

" It is not enough that you are personally clean," 
he says, with what energy and courage he can com- 
mand, — " not enough though the clean outnumber the 
foul as greatly as those gifted with eyesight out- 
number the blind, if you that can see allow the blind 
to lead you. It is not by the private lives of the mil- 
lions that the outside world will judge you, but by 
the public career of those units whose venality is 
allowed to debase the name of your country. There 
never was plainer proof given than is given here, that 
it is the duty of every honest citizen to look after the 
honour of his State." 

Personally, I have to own that I have met Americans, 



THE QUESTION" OF COPYRIGHT WITH AMERICA 273 

— men, but more frequently women, — who have in all 
respects come up to my ideas of what men and women 
should' be: energetic, having opinions of their own, 
quick in speech, with some dash of sarcasm at their 
command, always intelligent, sweet to look at (I speak 
of the women), fond of pleasure, and each with a 
personality of his or her own which makes no effort 
necessary on my own part in remembering the dif- 
ference between Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Green, or 
between Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson. They have 
faults. They are self-conscious, and are too prone to 
prove by ill-concealed struggles that they are as good 
as you, — whereas you perhaps have been long acknowl- 
edging to yourself that they are much better. And 
there is sometimes a pretence at personal dignity 
among those who think themselves to have risen high 
in the world which is deliciously ludicrous. I remem- 
ber two old gentlemen, — the owners of names which 
stand deservedly high in public estimation, — whose 
deportment at a public funeral turned the occasion into 
one for irresistible comedy. They are suspicious at 
first, and fearful of themselves. They lack that sim- 
plicity of manners which with us has become a habit 
from our childhood. But they are never fools, and I 
think that they are seldon ill-natured. 

There is a woman, of whom not to speak in a work 
purporting to be a memoir of my own life would 
be to omit all allusion to one of the chief pleasures 
which has graced my later years. In the last fifteen 
years she has been, out of my family, my most chosen 
friend. She is a ray of light to me, from which I 
can always strike a spark by thinking of her. I do 
not know that I should please her or do any good 
by naming her. But not to allude to her in these 



274 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pages would amount almost to a falsehood. I could 
not write truly of myself without saying that such a 
friend had been vouchsafed to me. I trust she may 
live to read the words I have now written, and to wipe 
away a tear as she thinks of my feeling while I write 
them. 

I was absent on this occasion something over three 
months, and on my return I went back with energy 
to my work at the St. Paul's Magazine. The first 
novel in it from my own pen was called Phineas Finn, 
in which I commenced a series of semi-political tales. 
As I was debarred from expressing my opinions in 
the House of Commons, I took this method of declar- 
ing myself. And as I could not take my seat on those 
benches where I might possibly have been shone upon 
by the Speaker's eye, I had humbly to crave his per- 
mission for a seat in the gallery, so that I might thus 
become conversant with the ways and doings of the 
House in which some of my scenes were to be placed. 
The Speaker was very gracious, and gave me a run- 
ning order for, I think, a couple of months. It was 
enough, at any rate, to enable me often to be very 
tired, — and, as I have been assured by members, to 
talk of the proceedings almost as well as though 
Fortune had enabled me to fall asleep within the 
House itself. 

In writing Phineas Finn, and also some other 
novels which followed it, I was conscious that I 
could not make a tale pleasing chiefly, or perhaps in 
any part, by politics. If I write politics for my own 
sake, I must put in love and intrigue, social incidents, 
with perhaps a dash of sport, for the benefit of my 
readers. In this way I think I made my political hero 
interesting. It was certainly a blunder to take him 



FOUR MORE NOVELS 275 

from Ireland — into which I was led by the circum- 
stance that I created the scheme of the book during 
a visit to Ireland. There was nothing to be gained 
by the peculiarity, and there was an added difficulty 
in obtaining sympathy and affection for a politician 
belonging to a nationality whose politics are not 
respected in England. But in spite of this Phineas 
succeeded. It was not a brilliant success, — because 
men and women not conversant with political matters 
could not care much for a hero who spent so much of 
his time either in the House of Commons or in a public 
office. But the men who would have lived with Phin- 
eas Finn read the book, and the women who would 
have lived with Lady Laura Standish read it also. As 
this was what I had intended, I was contented. It is all 
fairly good except the ending, — as to which till I got to it 
I made no provision. As I fully intended to bring my 
hero again into the world, I was wrong to marry him 
to a simple pretty Irish girl, who could only be felt 
as an encumbrance on such return. When he did 
return I had no alternative but to kill the simple 
pretty Irish girl, which was an unpleasant and awk- 
ward necessity. 

In writing Phineas Finn I had constantly before 
me the necessity of progression in character, — of 
marking the changes in men and women which would 
naturally be produced by the lapse of years. In most 
novels the writer can have no such duty, as the period 
occupied is not long enough to allow of the change of 
which I speak. In Ivanhoe, all the incidents of which 
are included in less than a month, the characters should 
be, as they are, consistent throughout. Novelists who 
have undertaken to write the life of a hero or heroine 
have generally considered their work completed at 



2"^^ AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the interesting period of marriage, and have contented 
themselves with the advance in taste and manners 
which are common to all boys and girls as they become 
men and women. Fielding, no doubt, did more than 
this in Tom Jones, which is one of the greatest novels 
in the English language, for there he has shown how 
a noble and sanguine nature may fall away under 
temptation and be again strengthened and made to 
stand upright. But I do not think that novelists have 
often set before themselves the state of progressive 
change, — nor should I have done it, had I not found 
myself so frequently allured back to my old friends. So 
much of my inner life was passed in their company, 
that I was continually asking myself how this woman 
would act when this or that event had passed over her 
head, or how that man would carry himself when 
his youth had become manhood, or his manhood 
declined to old age. It was in regard to the 
old Duke of Omnium, of his nephew and heir, and 
of his heir's wife. Lady Glencora, that I was anx- 
ious to carry out this idea; but others added them- 
selves to my mind as I went on, and I got round me 
a circle of persons as to whom I knew not only their 
present characters, but how those characters were to 
be affected by years and circumstances. The happy 
motherly life of Violet Effingham, which was due to 
the girl's honest but long-restrained love; the tragic 
misery of Lady Laura, which was equally due to the 
sale she made of herself in her wretched marriage; 
and the long suffering but final success of the hero, 
of which he had deserved the first by his vanity, and 
the last by his constant honesty, had been fore- 
shadowed to me from the first. As to the incidents of 
the story, the circumstances by which these person- 



FOUR MORE NOVELS 2^^ 

ages were to be affected, I knew nothing. They were 
created for the most part as they were described. I 
never could arrange a set of events before me. But 
the evil and the good of my puppets, and how the evil 
would always lead to evil, and the good produce good, 
— that was clear to me as the stars on a summer 
night. 

Lady Laura Standish is the best character in Phineas 
Finn and its sequel Phineas Redux, — of which I will 
speak here together. They are, in fact, but one novel, 
though they were brought out at a considerable inter- 
val of time and in different form. The first was com- 
menced in the St. Paul's Magazine in 1867, and the 
other was brought out in the Graphic in 1873. In this 
there was much bad arrangement, as I had no right to 
expect that novel readers would remember the charac- 
ters of a story after an interval of six years, or that 
any little interest which might have been taken in the 
career of my hero could then have been renewed. I 
do not know that such interest was renewed. But I 
found that the sequel enjoyed the same popularity as 
the former part, and among the same class of readers. 
Phineas, and Lady Laura, and Lady Chiltern — as 
Violet had become — and the old duke, — whom I killed 
gracefully, and the new duke, and the young duchess, 
either kept their old friends or made new friends for 
themselves. Phineas Finn, I certainly think, was suc- 
cessful from first to last. I am aware, however, that 
there was nothing in it to touch the heart like the 
abasement of Lady Mason when confessing her guilt to 
her old lover, or any approach in delicacy of delinea- 
tion to the character of Mr. Crawley. 

Phineas Finn, the first part of the story, was com- 
pleted in May, 1867. In June and July I wrote Linda 



278 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Tressel for Blackwood's Magazine, of which I have 
already spoken. In September and October I wrote a 
short novel, called The Golden Lion of Granpere, 
which was intended also for Blackwood, — with a view 
of being published anonymously ; but Mr. Blackwood did 
not find the arrangement to be profitable, and the story 
remained on my hands, unread and unthought of, for 
a few years. It appeared subsequently in Good 
Words. It was written on the model of Nina Balatka 
and Linda Tressel, but is very inferior to either of 
them. In November of the same year, 1867, I began 
a very long novel, which I called He Knew He Was 
Right, and which was brought out by Mr. Virtue, the 
proprietor of the St. Paul's Magazine, in sixpenny 
numbers, every week. I do not know that in any 
literary effort I ever fell more completely short of my 
own intention than in this story. It was my purpose 
to create sympathy for the unfortunate mim who, 
while endeavouring to do his duty to all around 
him, should be led constantly astray by his unwilling- 
ness to submit his own judgment to the opinion of 
others. The man is made to be unfortunate enough, 
and the evil which he does is apparent. So far I did 
not fail, but the sympathy has not been created yet. 
I look upon the story as being nearly altogether bad. 
It is in part redeemed by certain scenes in the house, 
and vicinity of an old maid in Exeter. But a novel 
which in its main parts is bad cannot, in truth, be 
redeemed by the vitality of subordinate characters. 

This work was finished while I was at Washing- 
ton in the spring of 1868, and on the day after I finished 
it, I commenced The Vicar of Bullhampton, a novel 
which I wrote for Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. This, 
I completed in November, 1868, and at once begar^ 



FOUR MORE NOVELS 279 

Sir Harry Hotspur of Hiimhlcthwaite, a story wliich 
1 was still writing at the close of the >ear. I look 
upon these two years, 1867 and 1868, of which I have 
given a somewhat confused account in this and the 
two preceding chapters, as the busiest in my life. I 
had indeed left the Post Office, but though I had left 
it I had been employed by it during a considerable 
portion of the time. I had established the St. Paul's 
Magazine, in reference to which I had read an enor- 
mous amount of manuscript, and for which, indepen- 
dently of my novels, I had written articles almost 
monthly. I had stood for Beverley and had made 
many speeches. I had also written five novels, and 
had hunted three times a week during each of the 
winters. And how happy I was with it all ! I had 
suffered at Beverley, but I had suffered as a part of the 
work which I was desirous of doing, and I had gained 
my experience. I had suffered at Washington with 
that wretched American Postmaster, and with the 
mosquitoes, not having been able to escape from that 
capital till July; but all that had added to the activity 
of my life. I had often groaned over those manu- 
scripts; but I had read them, considering it — perhaps 
foolishly — to be a part of my duty as editor. And 
though in the quick production of my novels I had 
always ringing in my ears that terrible condemna- 
tion and scorn produced by the great man in Pater- 
noster Row, I was nevertheless proud of having done 
so much. I always had a pen in my hand. Whether 
crossing the seas, or fighting with American officials, 
or tramping about the streets of Beverley, I could do 
a little, and generally more than a little. I had long 
since convinced myself that in such work as mine the 
great secret consisted in acknowledging myself to be 



28o AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

bound to rules of labour similar to those which an 
artisan or a mechanic is forced to obey. A shoemaker 
when he has finished one pair of shoes does not sit down 
and contemplate his work in idle satisfaction. " There 
is my pair of shoes finished at last ! What a pair of 
shoes it is ! " The shoemaker who so indulged him- 
self would be without wages half his time. It is the 
same with a professional writer of books. An author 
may of course want time to study a new subj ect. He will 
at any rate assure himself that there is some such good 
reason why he should pause. He does pause, and will 
be idle for a month or two while he tells himself how 
beautiful is that last pair of shoes which he has 
finished ! Having thought much of all this, and having 
made up my mind that I could be really happy only 
when I was at work, I had now quite accustomed my- 
self to begin a second pair as soon as the first was 
out of my hands. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



SPUR — AN EDITOR S TALES — CAESAR 

In 1869 I was called on to decide, in council with my 
two boys and their mother, what should be their desti- 
nation in life. In June of that year the elder, who was 
then twenty-three, was called to the Bar; and as he 
had gone through the regular courses of lecturing 
tuition and study, it might be supposed that his course 
was already decided. But, just as he was called, there 
seemed to be an opening for him in another direction; 
and this, joined to the terrible uncertainty of the Bar, 
the terror of which was not in his case lessened by 
any peculiar forensic aptitudes, induced us to sacri- 
fice dignity in quest of success. Mr. Frederic Chap- 
man, who was then the sole representative of the pub- 
lishing house known as Messrs. Chapman & Hall, 
wanted a partner, and my son Henry went into the 
firm. He remained there three years and a half; but 
he did not like it, nor do I think he made a very good 
publisher. At any rate he left the business with per- 
haps more pecuniary success than might have been 
expected from the short period of his labours, and has 
since taken himself to literature as a profession. 
Whether he will work at it so hard as his father, and 
write as many books, may be doubted. 

My second son, Frederic, had very early in life 
381 



282 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

gone to Australia, having resolved on a colonial career 
when he found that boys who did not grow so fast as 
he did got above him at school. This departure was a 
great pang to his mother and me; but it was permitted 
on the understanding that he was to come back when 
he was twenty-one, and then decide whether he would 
remain in England or return to the Colonies. In the 
winter of 1868 he did come to England, and had a 
season's hunting in the old country; but there was no 
doubt in his own mind as to his settling in Australia. 
His purpose was fixed, and in the spring of 1869 he 
made his second journey out. As I have since that 
date made two journeys to see him, — of one of which 
at any rate I shall have to speak, as I wrote a long 
book on the Australasian Colonies, — I will have an 
opportunity of saying a word or two further on of 
him and his doings. 

The Vicar of Bullhampton was written in 1868 for 
publication in Once a Week, a periodical then belong- 
ing to Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. It was not to come 
out till 1869, and I, as was my wont, had made my terms 
long previously to the proposed date. I had made my 
terms and written my story and sent it to the pub- 
lisher long before it was wanted; and so far my mind 
was at rest. The date fixed was the first of July, 
which date had been named in accordance with the 
exigencies of the editor of the periodical. An author 
who writes for these publications is bound to suit him- 
self to these exigencies, and can generally do so with- 
out personal loss or inconvenience, if he will only take 
time by the forelock. With all the pages that I have 
written for magazines I have never been a day late, 
nor have I ever caused inconvenience by sending less 
or more matter than I had stipulated to supply. But I 



283 

have sometimes found myself compelled to suffer by 
the irregularity of others. 1 have endeavoured to con- 
sole myself by reflecting that such must ever be the 
fate of virtue. The industrious must feed the idle. 
The honest and simple will always be the prey of the 
cunning and fraudulent. The punctual, who keep nonfi 
waiting for them, are doomed to wait perpetually for 
the unpunctual. But these earthly sufferers know that 
they are making their way heavenwards, — and their 
oppressors their way elsewards. If the former re- 
flection does not suffice for consolation, the deficiency 
is made up by the second. 1 was terribly aggrieved 
on the matter of the publication of my new Vicar, 
and had to think very much of the ultimate rewards of 
punctuality and its opposite. About the end of March, 
1869, I got a dolorous letter from the editor. All the 
Once a Week people were in a terrible trouble. They 
had bought the right of translating one of Victor 
Hugo's modern novels, U Homme Qui Rit; they had 
fixed a date, relying on positive pledges from the 
French publishers; and now the great French author 
had postponed his work from week to week and from 
month to month, and it had so come to pass that the 
Frenchman's grinning hero would have to appear 
exactly at the same time as my clergyman. Was it 
not quite apparent to me, the editor asked, that Once 
a Week could not hold the two? Would I allow my 
clergyman to make his appearance in the Gentleman's 
Magazine instead? 

My disgust at this proposition was, I think, chiefly 
due to Victor Hugo's latter novels, which I regard as 
pretentious and untrue to nature. To this perhaps was 
added some feeling of indignation that I should be 
asked to give way to a Frenchman. The Frenchman 



284 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had broken his engagement. He had failed to have 
his work finished by the stipulated time. From week 
to week and from month to month he had put off the 
fulfilment of his duty. And because of these laches 
on his part, — on the part of this sententious French 
Radical, — I was to be thrown over ! Virtue some- 
times finds it difficult to console herself even with the 
double comfort. I would not come out in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, and as the Grinning Man could not 
be got out of the way, by novel was published in 
separate numbers. 

The same thing has occurred to me more than once 
since. " You no doubt are regular," a publisher has 
said to me, " but Mr. — '■ — is irregular. He has 
thrown me out, and I cannot be ready for you till 
three months after the time named. " In these emer- 
gencies I have given perhaps half what was wanted, 
and have refused to give the other half. I have en- 
deavoured to fight my own battle fairly, and at the 
same time not to make myself unnecessarily obstinate. 
But the circumstances have impressed on my mind the 
great need there is that men engaged in literature 
should feel themselves to be bound to their industry 
as men know that they are bound in other callings. 
There does exist, I fear, a feeling that authors, because 
they are authors, are relieved from the necessity of 
paying attention to everyday rules. A writer, if he 
be making £800 a year, does not think himself bound 
to live modestly on £600, and put by the remainder for 
his wife and children. He does not understand that 
he should sit down at his desk at a certain hour. He 
imagines that publishers and booksellers should keep 
all their engagements with him to the letter; — but 
that he, as a brain-worker, and conscious of the subtle 



285 

nature of the brain, should be able to exempt himself 
from bonds when it suits him. He has his own theory 
about inspiration which will not always come, — espe- 
cially will not come if wine-cups overnight have been 
too deep. All this has ever been odious to me, as being 
unmanly. A man may be frail in health, and there- 
fore unable to do as he has contracted in whatever 
grade of life. He who has been blessed with physical 
strength to work day by day, year by year — as has been 
my case — should pardon deficiencies caused by sick- 
ness or infirmity. I may in this respect have been a 
little hard on others, — and, if so, I here record my re- 
pentance. But I think that no allowance should be 
given to claims for exemption from punctuality, made if 
not absolutely on the score still with the conviction of 
intellectual superiority. 

The Vicar of Biillhampton was written chiefly with 
the object of exciting not only pity but sympathy for a 
fallen woman, and of raising a feeling of forgiveness 
for such in the minds of other women. I could not 
venture to make this female the heroine of my story. 
To have made her a heroine at all would have been 
directly opposed to my purpose. It was necessary 
therefore that she should be a second-rate personage 
in the tale; — but it was with reference to her life that 
the tale was written, and the hero and the heroine 
with their belongings are all subordinate. To this 
novel I affixed a preface, — in doing which I was acting 
in defiance of my old-established principle. I do not 
know that any one read it; but as I wish to have it 
read, I will insert it here again: — 

" I have introduced in the Vicar of Biillhampton 
the character of a girl whom I will call, — for want of 
a truer word that shall not in its truth be offensive, — a 



286 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with 
qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought 
her back at last from degradation, at least to decency. 
I have not married her to a wealthy lover, and I have 
endeavoured to explain that though there was possible 
to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be 
with her as they would have been had she not fallen, 
"There arises, of course, the question whether a 
novelist, who professes to write for the amusement of 
the young of both sexes, should allow himself to bring 
upon his stage a character such as that of Carry 
Brattle. It is not long since, — it is well within the 
memory of the author, — that the very existence of 
such a condition of life as was hers, was supposed to 
be unknown to our sisters and daughters, and was, 
in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether that 
ignorance was good may be questioned; but that it 
exists no longer is beyond question. Then arises the 
further question, — how far the conditions of such un- 
fortunates should be made a matter of concern to the 
sweet young hearts of those whose delicacy and clean- 
liness of thought is a matter of pride to so many of us. 
Cannot women, who are good, pity the sufferings of 
the vicious, and do something perhaps to mitigate and 
shorten them without contamination from the vice? 
It will be admitted probably by most men who have 
thought upon the subject that no fault among us is 
punished so heavily as that fault, often so light in it- 
self but so terrible in its consequences to the less faulty 
of the two offenders, by which a woman falls. All of 
her own sex is against her, and all those of the other 
sex in whose veins runs the blood which she is thought 
to have contaminated, and who, of nature, would be- 
friend her, were her trouble any other than it is. 



28/ 

" She IS what she is, and she remains in her abject, 
pitiless, unutterable misery, because this sentence of 
the world has placed her beyond the helping hand of 
Love and Friendship. It may be said, no doubt, that 
the severity of this judgment acts as a protection to 
female virtue, — deterring, as all known punishments 
do deter, from vice. But this punishment, which 
is horrible beyond the conception of those who have 
not regarded it closely, is not known beforehand. 
Instead of the punishment, there is seen a false glitter 
of gaudy life, — a glitter which is damnably false, — and 
which, alas ! has been more often portrayed in glowing 
colours, for the injury of young girls, than have those 
horrors which ought to deter, with the dark shadow- 
ings which belong to them. 

" To write in fiction of one so fallen as the noblest 
of her sex, as one to be rewarded because of her 
weakness, as one whose life is happy, bright, and 
glorious, is certainly to allure to vice and misery. But 
it may perhaps be possible that if the matter be handled 
with truth to life, some girl, who would have been 
thoughtless, may be made thoughtful, or some parent's 
heart may be softened." 

Those were my ideas when I conceived the story, 
and with that feeling I described the characters of 
Carry Brattle and of her family. I have not introduced 
her lover on the scene, nor have I presented her to the 
reader in the temporary enjoyment of any of those 
fallacious luxuries, the longing for which is sometimes 
more seductive to evil than love itself. She is intro- 
duced as a poor abased creature, who hardly knows 
how false were her dreams, with very little of the 
Magdalene about her — because though there may be 
Magdalenes they are not often found — but with an in- 



288 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tense horror of the sufferings of her position. Such 
being her condition, will they who naturally are her 
friends protect her? The vicar who has taken her by 
the hand endeavours to excite them to charity; but 
father, and brother, and sister are alike hard-hearted. 
It had been my purpose at first that the hand of every 
Brattle should be against her; but my own heart was 
too soft to enable me to make the mother cruel, — or 
the unmarried sister who had been the early com- 
panion of the forlorn one. 

As regards all the Brattles, the story is, I think, well 
told. The characters are true, and the scenes at the 
mill are in keeping with human nature. For the rest 
of the book I have little to say. It is not very bad, 
and it certainly is not very good. As I have myself 
forgotten what the heroine does and says — except that 
she tumbles into a ditch — I cannot expect that any one 
else should remember her. But I have forgotten noth- 
ing that was done or said by any of the Brattles. 

The question brought in argument is one of fearful 
importance. As to the view to be taken first, there 
can, I think, be no doubt. In regard to a sin common 
to the two sexes, almost all the punishment and all the 
disgrace is heaped upon the one who in nine cases out 
of ten has been the least sinful. And the punishment 
inflicted is of such a nature that it hardly allows room 
for repentance. How is the woman to return to 
decency to whom no decent door is opened? Then 
comes the answer: It is to the severity of the punish- 
ment alone that we can trust to keep women from fall- 
ing. Such is the argument used in favour of the 
existing practice, and such the excuse given for their 
severity by women who will relax nothing of their 
harshness. But in truth the severity of the punish- 



289 

ment is not known beforehand; it is not in the least 
understood by women in general, except by those who 
suffer it. The gaudy dirt, the squalid plenty, the con- 
tumely of familiarity, the absence of all good words 
and all good things, the banishment from honest 
labour, the being compassed round with lies, the 
flaunting glare of fictitious revelry, the weary pave- 
ment, the horrid slavery to some horrid tyrant, — and 
then the quick depreciation of that one ware of beauty, 
the substituted paint, garments bright without but foul 
within like painted sepulchres, hunger, thirst, and 
strong drink, life without a hope, without the certainty 
even of a morrow's breakfast, utterly friendless, dis- 
ease, starvation, and a quivering fear of that coming 
hell which still can hardly be worse than all that is 
suffered here ! This is the life to which we doom our 
erring daughters, when because of their error we close 
our door upon them ! But for our erring sons we find 
pardon easily enough. 

Of course there are houses of refuge, from which 
it has been thought expedient to banish everything 
pleasant, as though the only repentance to which we 
can afford to give a place must necessarily be one of 
sackcloth and ashes. It is hardly thus that we can 
hope to recall those to decency who, if they are to be 
recalled at all, must be induced to obey the summons 
before they have reached the last stage of that misery 
which I have attempted to describe. To me the mis- 
take which we too often make seems to be this, — that 
the girl who has gone astray is put out of sight, out of 
mind if possible, at any rate out of speech, as though 
she had never existed, and that this ferocity comes not 
only from hatred of the sin, put in part also from a 
dread of the taint which the sin brings with it. Very 



290 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

low as is the degradation to which a girl is brought 
when she falls through love or vanity, or perhaps from 
a longing for luxurious ease, still much lower is that 
to which she must descend perforce when, through 
the hardness of the world around her, she converts that 
sin into a trade. Mothers and sisters, when the mis- 
fortune comes upon them of a fallen female from 
among their number, should remember this, and not 
fear contamination so strongly as did Carry Brattle's 
married sister and sister-in-law. 

In 1870 I brought out three books, — or rather of the 
latter of the three I must say that it was brought out by 
others, for I had nothing to do with it except to write 
it. These were Sir Harry Hotspur of Hiimblethwaite, 
An Editor's Tales j and a little volume on Julius 
Csesar. Sir Harry Hotspur was written on the same 
plan as Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, and had for 
its object the telling of some pathetic incident in life 
rather than the portraiture of a number of human 
beings. Nina and Linda Tressel and The Golden Lion 
had been placed in foreign countries, and this was an 
English siory. In other respects it is of the same na- 
ture, and was not, I think, by any means a failure. 
There is much of pathos in the love of the girl, and of 
paternal dignity and affection in the father. 

It was published first in Macmillan's Magazine, by 
the intelligent proprietor of which I have since been 
told that it did not make either his fortune or that of 
his magazine. I am sorry that it should have been 
so; but I fear that the same thing may be said of a 
good many of my novels. When it had passed through 
the magazine, the subsequent use of it was sold to other 
publishers by Mr. Macmillan, and then I learned that 
it was to be brought out by them as a novel in two 



291 

volumes. Now it had been sold by me as a novel in 
one volume, and hence there arose a correspondence. 

I found it very hard to make the purchasers under- 
stand that I had reasonable ground for objection to 
the process. What was it to me? How could it in- 
jure me if they stretched my pages by means of lead 
and margin into double the number I had intended. I 
have heard the same argument on other occasions. 
When I have pointed out that in this way the public 
would have to suffer, seeing that they would have to 
pay Mudie for the use of two volumes in reading that 
which ought to have been given to them in one, I 
have been assured that the public are pleased with 
literary short measure, that it is the object of novel- 
readers to get through novels as fast as they can, and 
that the shorter each volume is the better ! Even this, 
however, did not overcome me, and I stood to my guns. 
Sir Harry was published in one volume, containing 
something over the normal 300 pages, with an average 
of 220 words to a page, — which I had settled with my 
conscience to be the proper length of a novel volume. 
I may here mention that on one occasion, and one oc- 
casion only, a publisher got the better of me in a mat- 
ter of volumes. He had a two-volume novel of mine 
running through a certain magazine, and had it 
printed complete in three volumes before I knew where 
I was, — before I had seen a sheet of the letterpress. I 
stormed for a while, but I had not the heart to make 
him break up the type. 

The Editor's Tales was a volume republished from 
the St. Paul's Magazine, and professed to give an edi- 
tor's experience of his dealings with contributors. I 
do not think that there is a single incident in the 
book which could bring back to any one concerned the 



292 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

memory of a past event. And yet there is not an in- 
cident in it the outline of which was not presented to 
my mind by the remembrance of some fact: — how an 
ingenious gentleman got into conversation with me, I 
not knowing that he knew me to be an editor, and pressed 
his little article on my notice; how I was addressed by 
a lady with a becoming pseudonym and with much 
equally becoming audacity; how I was appealed to by 
the dearest of little women whom here I have called 
Mary Gresley; how in my own early days there was 
a struggle over an abortive periodical which was in- 
tended to be the best thing ever done ; how terrible was 
the tragedy of a poor drunkard, who with infinite 
learning at his command made one sad final effort to 
reclaim himself, and perished while he was making it; 
and lastly how a poor weak editor was driven nearly 
to madness by threatened litigation from a rejected 
contributor. Of these stories, The Spotted Dog, with 
the struggles of the drunkard scholar, is the best. I 
know now, however, that when the things were good 
they came out too quick one upon another to gain 
much attention; — and so also, luckily, when they were 
bad. 

The Caesar was a thing of itself. My friend John 
Blackwood had set on foot a series of small volumes 
called Ancient Classics for English Readers, and had 
placed the editing of them, and the compiling of many 
of them, in the hands of William Lucas Collins, a 
clergyman who, from my connection with the series, 
became a most intimate friend. The Iliad and the 
Odyssey had already come out when I was at Edin- 
burgh with John Blackwood, and, on my expressing 
my very strong admiration for those two little vol- 
umes, — which I here recommend to all young ladies 



293 

as the most charming tales they can read, — he asked 
me whether I would not undertake one myself. Herod- 
otus was in the press, but, if I could get it ready, mine 
should be next. Whereupon I offered to say what 
might be said to the readers of English on The Com- 
mentaries of Julius Caesar. 

I at once went to work, and in three months from 
that day the little book had been written. I began by 
reading through the Commentaries twice, which I did 
without any assistance either by translation or English 
notes. Latin was not so familiar to me then as it 
has since become, — for from that date I have almost 
daily spent an hour with some Latin author, and on 
many days many hours. After the reading what my 
author had left behind him, I fell into the reading of 
what others had written about him, in Latin, in English, 
and even in French, — for I went through much of 
that most futile book by the late Emperor of the 
French. I do not know that for a short period I ever 
worked harder. The amount I had to write was noth- 
ing. Three weeks would have done it easily. But I 
was most anxious, in this soaring out of my own pecu- 
liar line, not to disgrace myself. I do not think that 
I did disgrace myself. Perhaps I was anxious for 
something more. If so, I was disappointed. 

The book I think to be a good little book. It is 
readable by all, old and young, and it gives, I believe 
accurately, both an account of Caesar's Commentaries, 
— which of course was the primary intention, — and the 
chief circumstances of the great Roman's life. A well- 
educated girl who had read it and remembered it 
would perhaps know as much about Caesar and his 
writings as she need know. Beyond the consolation 
of thinking as I do about it, I got very little gratifica- 



294 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tion ifom the work. Nobody praised it. One very 
old and very learned friend to whom I sent it thanked 
me for my " comic Caesar," but said no more. I do 
not suppose that he intended to run a dagger into me. 
Of any suffering from such wounds, I think, while 
living, I never showed a sign; but still I have suffered 
occasionally. There was, however, probably present 
to my friend's mind, and to that of others, a feeling 
that a man who had spent his life in writing English 
novels could not be fit to write about Csesar. It was 
as when an amateur gets a picture hung on the walls 
of the Academy. What business had I there? Ne 
sutor ultra crepidam. In the press it was most faintly 
damned by most faint praise. Nevertheless, having 
read the book again within the last month or two, I 
make bold to say that it is a good book. The series, I 
believe, has done very well. I am sure that it ought 
to do well in years to come, for, putting aside Csesar, 
the work has been done with infinite scholarship, and 
very generally with a light hand. With the leave of 
my sententious and sonorous friend, who had not en- 
dured that subjects which had been grave to him 
should be treated irreverently, I will say that such a 
work, unless it be light, cannot answer the purpose 
for which it ii intended. It was not exactly a school- 
book that was wanted, but something that would carry 
the purposes of the schoolroom even into the leisure 
hours of adult pupils. Nothing was ever better suited 
for such a purpose than the Iliad and the Odyssey, as 
done by Mr. Collins. The Virgil, also done by him, is 
very good; and so is the Aristophanes by the same 
hand. 



CHAPTER XIX 



In the spring of 1871 we, — I and my wife, — had de- 
cided that we would go to Australia to visit our shep- 
herd son. Of course before doing so I made a contract 
with a publisher for a book about the Colonies. For 
such a work as this I had always been aware that I 
could not fairly demand more than half the price that 
would be given for the same amount of fiction; and as 
such books have an indomitable tendency to stretch 
themselves, so that more is given than what is sold, 
and as the cost of travelling is heavy, the writing of 
them is not remunerative. This tendency to stretch 
comes not, I think, generally from the ambition of 
the writer, but from his inability to comprise the 
different parts in their allotted spaces. If you have to 
deal with a country, a colony, a city, a trade, or a 
political opinion, it Is so much easier to deal with it in 
twenty than in twelve pages ! I also made an engage- 
ment with the editor of a London daily paper to supply 
him with a series of articles, — which were duly writ- 
ten, duly published, and duly paid for. But with all 
this, travelling with the object of writing is not a good 
trade. If the travelling author can pay his bills, he 
must be a good manager on the road. 

Before starting there came upon us the terrible 
295 



296 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

necessity of coming to some resolution about our 
house at Waltham. It had been first hired, and then 
bought, primarily because it suited my Post Office 
avocations. To this reason had been added other at- 
tractions, — in the shape of hunting, gardening, and 
suburban hospitalities. Altogether the house had 
been a success, and the scene of much happiness. But 
there arose questions as to expense. Would not a 
house in London be cheaper? There could be no doubt 
that my income would decrease, and was decreasing. 
I had thrown the Post Office, as it were, away, and the 
writing of novels could not go on for ever. Some of 
my friends told me already that at fifty-five I ought 
to give up the fabrication of love-stories. The hunt- 
ing, I thought, must soon go, and I would not there- 
fore allow that to keep me in the country. And then, 
why should I live at Waltham Cross now, seeing that 
I had fixed on that place in reference to the Post 
Office? It was therefore determined that we would flit, 
and as we were to be away for eighteen months, we de- 
termined also to sell our furniture. So there was a 
packing up, with many tears, and consultations as to 
what should be saved out of the things we loved. 

As must take place on such an occasion, there was 
some heart-felt grief. But the thing was done, and 
orders were given for the letting or sale of the house. 
I may as well say here that it never was let and that 
it remained unoccupied for two years before it 
was sold. I lost by the transaction about £800. As 
I continually hear that other men make money by 
buying and selling houses, I presume I am not well 
adapted for transactions of that sort. I have never 
made money by selling anything except a manuscript. 
In matters of horseflesh I am so inefficient that I 



297 

have generally given away horses that 1 have not 
wanted. 

When we started from Liverpool, in May, 1871, 
Ralph the Heir was running through the St. Paul's, 
This was the novel of which Charles Reade afterwards 
took the plot and made on it a play. I have always 
thought it to be one of the worst novels I have writ- 
ten, and almost to have justified that dictum that a 
novelist after fifty should not write love-stories. It 
was in part a political novel; and that part which ap- 
pertains to politics, and which recounts the electioneer-- 
ing experiences of the candidates at Percycross, is well 
enough. Percycross and Beverley were, of course, 
one and the same place. Neefit, the breeches-maker, 
and his daughter, are also good in their way, — and 
Moggs, the daughter's lover, who was not only lover, 
but also one of the candidates at Percycross as well, 
But the main thread of the story, — that which tells of 
the doings of the young gentlemen and young ladies,—* 
the heroes and the heroines, — is not good. Ralph the 
heir has not much life about him; while Ralph who is 
not the heir, but is intended to be the real hero, has 
none. The same may be said of the young ladies, — of 
whom one, she who was meant to be the chief, has 
passed utterly out of my mind, without leaving a trac^ 
of remembrance behind. 

I also left in the hands of the editor of The Fort- 
nightly, ready for production on the ist of July follow- 
ing, a story called The Eustace Diamonds. In that I 
think that my friend's dictum was disproved. There 
is not much love in it; but what there is, is good. The 
character of Lucy Morris is pretty; and her love is ad 
genuine and as well told as that of Lucy Robarts ol 
Lily Dale. 



298 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

But The Eustace Diamonds achieved the success 
which it certainly did attain, not as a love-story, but 
as a record of a cunning little woman of pseudo-fash- 
ion, to whom, in her cunning, there came a series 
of adventures, unpleasant enough in themselves, but 
pleasant to the reader. As I wrote the book, the idea 
constantly presented itself to me that Lizzie Eustace 
was but a second Becky Sharpe; but in planning the 
character I had not thought of this, and I believe that 
Lizzie would have been just as she is though Becky 
Sharpe had never been described. The plot of the dia- 
mond necklace is, I think, well arranged, though it 
produced itself without any forethought. I had no 
idea of setting thieves after the bauble till I had got my 
heroine to bed in the inn at Carlisle; nor of the 
disappointment of the thieves, till Lizzie had been 
wakened in the morning with the news that her door 
had been broken open. All these things, and many 
more, Wilkie Collins would have arranged before with 
infinite labour, preparing things present so that they 
should fit in with things to come. I have gone on the 
very much easier plan of making everything as it 
comes fit in with what has gone before. At any rate, 
the book was a success, and did much to repair the in- 
jury which I felt had come to my reputation in the 
novel-market by the works of the last few years. I 
doubt whether I had written anything so successful 
as The Eustace Diamonds since The Small House at 
Allington. I had written what was much better, — 
as, for instance, Phineas Finn and Nina Balatka; but 
that is by no means the same thing. 

I also left behind, in a strong box, the manuscript of 
Phineas Redux, a novel of which I have already 
spoken, and which I subsequently sold to the propria- 



" THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS 299 

tors of the Graphic newspaper. The editor of that 
paper greatly disliked the title, assuring me that the 
public would take Redux for the gentleman's surname, 
— and was dissatisfied with me when I replied that I 
had no objection to them doing so. The introduction 
of a Latin word, or of a word from any other 
language, into the title of an English novel is un- 
doubtedly in bad taste; but after turning the matter 
much over in my own mind, I could find no other suit- 
able name. 

I also left behind me, in the same strong box, another 
novel, called An Eye for an Eye, which then had been 
some time written, and of which, as it has not even yet 
been published, I will not further speak. It will prob- 
ably be published some day, though, looking forward, 
I can see no room for it, at any rate, for the next 
two years. 

If therefore the Great Britain, in which we sailed 
for Melbourne, had gone to the bottom, I had so pro- 
vided that there would be new novels ready to come 
out under my name for some years to come. This con- 
sideration, however, did not keep me idle while I was at 
sea. When making long journeys, I have always suc- 
ceeded in getting a desk put up in my cabin, and this 
was done ready for me in the Great Britain, so that I 
could go to work the day after we left Liverpool. This 
I did; and before I reached Melbourne I had finished a 
story called Lady Anna. Every word of this was writ- 
ten at sea, during the two months required for our 
voyage, and was done day by day — with the inter- 
mission of one day's illness — for eight weeks, at the 
rate of 66 pages of manuscript in each week, every 
page of manuscript containing 250 words. Every word 
was counted. I have seen work come back to an 



300 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

author from the press with terrible deficiencies as to 
the amount supplied. Thirty-two pages have perhaps 
been wanted for a number, and the printers with all 
their art could not stretch the matter to more than 
twenty-eight or -nine ! The work of filling up must be 
very dreadful. I have sometimes been ridiculed for 
the methodical details of my business. But by these 
contrivances I have been preserved from many 
troubles; and I have saved others with whom I have 
worked — editors, publishers, and printers — from much 
trouble also. 

A month or two after my return home, Lady Anna 
appeared in The Fortnightly, following The Eustace 
Diamonds. In it a young girl, who is really a lady of 
high rank and great wealth, though in her youth she 
enjoyed none of the privileges of wealth or rank, 
marries a tailor who had been good to her, and whom 
she had loved when she was poor and neglected. A 
fine young noble lover is provided for her, and all the 
charms of sweet living with nice people are thrown in 
her way, in order that she may be made to give up the 
tailor. And the charms are very powerful with her. 
But the feeling that she is bound by her troth to the 
man who had always been true to her overcomes every- 
thing, — and she marries the tailor. It was my wish 
of course to justify her in doing so, and to carry my 
readers along with me in my sympathy with her. But 
everybody found fault with me for marrying her to 
the tailor. What would they have said if I had al- 
lowed her to jilt the tailor and marry the good-looking 
young lord? How much louder, then, would have 
been the censure ! The book was read, and I was 
satisfied. If I had not told my story well, there would 
have been no feeling in favour of the young lord. The 



301 

horror which was expressed to me at the evil thing 
I had done, in giving the girl to the tailor, was the 
strongest testimony I could receive of the merits of 
the story. 

I went to Australia chiefly in order that I might see 
my son among his sheep. I did see him among his 
sheep, and remained with him for four or five very 
happy weeks. He was not making money, nor has he 
made money since. I grieve to say that several thou- 
sands of pounds which I had squeezed out of the pockets 
of perhaps too liberal publishers have been lost on the 
venture. But I rejoice to say that this has been in no 
way due to any fault of his. I never knew a man work 
with more persistent honesty at his trade than he has 
done. 

I had, however, the further intentions of writing a 
book about the entire group of Australasian Colonies; 
and in order that I might be enabled to do that with 
sufficient information, I visited them all. Making my 
headquarters at Melbourne, I went to Queensland, 
New South Wales, Tasmania, then to the very little 
known territory of Western Australia, and then, last 
of all, to New Zealand. I was absent in all eighteen 
months, and think that I did succeed in learning much 
of the political, social, and material condition of these 
countries. I wrote my book as I was travelling, and 
brought it back with me to England all but com- 
pleted in December, 1872. 

It was a better book than that which I had written 
eleven years before on the American States, but not 
so good as that on the West Indies in 1859. As re- 
gards the information given, there was much more to 
be said about Australia than the West Indies. Very 
much more is said, — and very much more may be 



302 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

learned from the latter than from the former book. 
I am sure that any one who will take the trouble to 
read the book on Australia, will learn much from it. 
But the West Indian volume was readable. I am not 
sure that either of the other works are, in the proper 
sense of that word. When I go back to them I find 
that the pages drag with me; — and if so with me, how 
must it be with others who have none of that love 
which a father feels even for his ill-favoured off- 
spring. Of all the needs a book has the chief need is 
that it be readable. 

Feeling that these volumes on Australia were dull 
and long, I was surprised to find that they had an ex- 
tensive sale. There were, I think, 2000 copies circu- 
lated of the first expensive edition; and then the book 
was divided into four little volumes, which were pub- 
lished separately, and which again had a considerable 
circulation. That some facts were stated inaccurately, 
I do not doubt; that many opinions were crude, I am 
quite sure; that I had failed to understand much which 
I attempted to explain, is possible. But with all these 
faults the book was a thoroughly honest book, and was 
the result of unflagging labour for a period of fifteen 
months. I spared myself no trouble in inquiry, no 
trouble in seeing, and no trouble in listening. I 
thoroughly imbued my mind with the subject, and 
wrote with the simple intention of giving trustworthy 
information on the state of the Colonies. Though 
there be inaccuracies, — those inaccuracies to which 
work quickly done must always be subject, — I think 
I did give much valuable information. 

I came home across America from San Francisco to 
New York, visiting Utah and Brigham Young on the 
way. I did not achieve great intimacy with the great 



303 

polygamist of the Salt Lake City. I called upon him, 
sending to him my card, apologising for doing so with- 
out an introduction, and excusing myself by saying 
that I did not like to pass through the territory without 
seeing a man of whom I had heard so much. He re- 
ceived me in his doorway, not asking me to enter, and 
inquired whether I were not a miner. When I told 
him that I was not a miner, he asked me whether I 
earned my bread. I told him I did. " I guess you're a 
miner, " said he. I again assured him that I was not. 
" Then how do you earn your bread ? " I told him that 
I did so by writing books. " I'm sure you're a miner, " 
said he. Then he turned upon his heel, went back 
into the house, and closed the door. I was properly 
punished, as I was vain enough to conceive that he 
would have heard my name. 

I got home in December, 1872, and In spite of any 
resolution made to the contrary, my mind was full of 
hunting as I came back. No real resolutions had in 
truth been made, for out of a stud of four horses I 
kept three, two of which were absolutely idle through 
the two summers and winter of my absence. Im- 
mediately on my arrival I bought another, and settled 
myself down to hunting from London three days a 
week. At first I went back to Essex, my old country, 
but finding that to be inconvenient, I took my horses 
to Leighton Buzzard, and became one of that numerous 
herd of sportsmen who rode with the " Baron " and 
Mr. Selby Lowndes. In those days Baron Meyer was 
alive, and the riding with his hounds was very good. 
I did not care so much for Mr. Lowndes. During the 
winters of 1873, 1874, and 1875, I had my horses back 
in Essex, and went on with my hunting, always trying 
to resolve that I would give it up. But still I bought 



304 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

fresh horses, and, as I did not give it up, I hunted 
more than ever. Three times a vy^eek the cab has been 
at my door in London very punctually, and not un- 
frequently before seven in the morning. In order to 
secure this attendance, the man has always been in- 
vited to have his breakfast in the hall. I have gone to 
the Great Eastern Railway, — ah! so often with the 
fear that frost would make all my exertions useless, 
and so often too with that result ! And then, from one 
station or another station, have travelled on wheels 
at least a dozen miles. After the day's sport, the same 
toil has been necessary to bring me home to dinner at 
eight. This has been work for a young man and a 
rich man, but I have done it as an old man and com- 
paratively a poor man. Now at last, in April, 1876, I 
do think that my resolution has been taken. I am 
giving away my old horses, and anybody is welcome to 
my saddles and horse-furniture. 

** Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes ; 
Eripuere jocos, venerem, convivia, ludum; 
Tendunt extorquere poemata." 

"Our years keep taking toll as they move on; 

My feasts, my frolics, are already gone. 
And now, it seems, my verses must go too.** 

This is Conington's translation, but it seems to me 
to be a little flat. 

"Years as they roll cut all our pleasures short; 
Our pleasant mirth, our loves, our wine, our sport, 
And then they stretch their power, and crush at last 
Even the power of singing of the past" 



305 

I think that I may say with truth that I rode hard 
to my end. 

"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus, 
Et militavi non sine gloria; 

Nunc arma defunctumque bello 
Barbiton hie paries habebit." 

"I've lived about the covert side, 
I've ridden straight, and ridden fast; 
Now breeches, boots, and scarlet pride 
Are but mementoes of the past" 



CHAPTER XX 

AND "the prime 

MINISTER "" CONCLUSION 

IN what I have said at the end of the last chapter 
about my hunting, I have been carried a little in ad- 
vance of the date at which I had arrived. We returned 
from Australia in the winter of 1872, and early in 1873 
I took a house in Montagu Square, — in which I hope 
to live and hope to die. Our first work in settling 
there was to place upon new shelves the books which 
I had collected round myself at Waltham. And this 
work, which was in itself great, entailed also the 
labour of a new catalogue. As all who use libraries 
know, a catalogue is nothing unless it show the spot 
on which every book is to be found, — information 
which every volume also ought to give as to itself. 
Only those who have done it know how great is the 
labour of moving and arranging a few thousand 
volumes. At the present moment I own about 5000 
volumes, and they are dearer to me even than the 
horses which are going, or than the wine in the cellar, 
which is very apt to go^ and upon which I also pride 
myself. 

When this was done, and the new furniture had got 
into its place, and my little book-room was settled suffi- 
ciently for work, I began a novel, to the writing of 
which I was instigated by what I conceived to be 
the commercial profligacy of the age. Whether the 
306 



THE WAY WE LIVE NOW 307 

world does or does not become more wicked as years go 
on, is a question which probably has disturbed the 
minds of thinkers since the world began to think. 
That men have become less cruel, less violent, less 
selfish, less brutal, there can be no doubt; — but have 
they become less honest? If so, can a world, retro- 
grading from day to day in honesty, be considered to 
be in a state of progress? We know the opinion on 
this subject of our philosopher Mr. Carlyle. If he be 
right, we are all going straight away to darkness and 
the dogs. But then we do not put very much faith 
in Mr. Carlyle, — nor in Mr. Ruskin and his other fol- 
lowers. The loudness and extravagance of their la- 
mentations, the wailing and gnashing of teeth which 
comes from them, over a world which is supposed to 
have gone altogether shoddy-wards, are so contrary 
to the convictions of men who cannot but see how 
comfort has been increased, how health has been im- 
proved, and education extended, — that the general 
effect of their teaching is the opposite of what they 
have intended. It is regarded simply as Carlylism to 
say that the English-speaking world is growing worse 
from day to day. And it is Carlylism to opine that the 
general grand result of increased intelligence is a ten- 
dency to deterioration. 

Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty 
magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high 
places, has become at the same time so rampant and so 
splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that 
men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, 
if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. 
If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pic- 
tures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, 
with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give 



308 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in 
millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the 
man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoun- 
drel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as 
these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way 
We Live Now. And as I had ventured to take the 
whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the 
iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, 
and made an onslaught also on other vices, — on the in- 
trigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury 
of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the 
puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the 
public into buying their volumes. 

The book has the fault which is to be attributed to 
almost all satires, whether in prose or verse. The ac- 
cusations are exaggerated. The vices are coloured, 
so as to make effect rather than to represent truth. 
Who, when the lash of objurgation is in his hands, can 
so moderate his arm as never to strike harder than 
justice would require? The spirit which produces the 
satire is honest enough, but the very desire which 
moves the satirist to do his work energetically makes 
him dishonest. In other respects The Way We Live 
Now was, as a satire, powerful and good. The 
character of Melmotte is well maintained. The Bear- 
garden is amusing, — and not untrue. The Longe- 
staffe girls and their friend, Lady Monogram, are 
amusing, — but exaggerated. Dolly Longestaffe, is, I 
think, very good. And Lady Carbury's literary efforts 
are, I am sorry to say, such as are too frequently 
made. But here again the young lady with her two 
lovers is weak and vapid. I almost doubt whether it 
be not impossible to have two absolutely distinct parts 
in a novel, and to imbue them both with interest. If 



THE WAY WE LIVE NOW 3O9 

they be distinct, the one will seem to be no more 
than padding to the other. And so it was in The Way 
We Live Nozu. The interest of the story lies among 
the wicked and foolish people, — with Melmotte and his 
daughter, with Dolly and his family, with the Ameri- 
can woman, Mrs. Hurtle, and with John Crumb and 
the girl of his heart. But Roger Carbury, Paul Monta- 
gue, and Henrietta Carbury are uninteresting. Upon 
the whole, I by no means look upon the book as 
one of my failures; nor was it taken as a failure by 
the public or the press. 

While I was writing The Way We Live Now, I 
was called upon by the proprietors of the Graphic for 
a Christmas story. I feel, with regard to literature, 
somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertaker 
feels when he is called upon to supply a funeral. He 
has to supply it, however distasteful it may be. It is 
his business, and he will starve if he neglects it. S(> 
have I felt that, when anything in the shape of a novel 
was required, I was bound to produce it. Nothing can 
be more distasteful to me than to have to give a relish 
of Christmas to what I write. I feel the humbug im- 
plied by the nature of the order. A Christmas story, in 
the proper sense, should be the ebullition of some mind 
anxious to instil others with a desire for Christmas re- 
ligious thought, or Christmas festivities, — or, better 
still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with 
Dickens when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. 
But since that the things written annually — all of 
which have been fixed to Christmas like children's 
toys to a Christmas tree — have had no real savour 
of Christmas about them. I had done two or three 
before. Alas ! at this very moment I have one to 
write, which I have promised to supply within three 



310 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

weeks of this time, — the picture-makers always require 
a long interval, — as to which I h-ave in vain been cudg- 
elling my brain for the last month. I can't send 
away the order to another shop, but I do not know 
how I shall ever get the coffin made. 

For the Graphic, in 1873, I wrote a little story about 
Australia. Christmas at the antipodes is of course 
midsummer, and I was not loth to describe the troubles 
to which my own son had been subjected, by the 
mingled accidents of heat and bad neighbours, on his 
station in the bush. So I wrote Harry Heathcote of 
Gangoil, and was well through my labour on that occa- 
sion. I only wish I may have no worse success in 
that which now hangs over my head. 

When Harry Heathcote was over, I returned with 
a full heart to Lady Glencora and her husband. I 
had never yet drawn the completed picture of such 
a statesman as my imagination had conceived. The 
personages with whose names my pages had been 
familiar, and perhaps even the minds of some of my 
readers — the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks, Greshams, 
and Daubeneys — had been more or less portraits, not 
of living men, but of living political characters. The 
strong-minded, thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, 
either of the Government or of the Opposition, had 
been very easy to describe, and had required no- 
imagination to conceive. The character reproduces 
itself from generation to generation; and as it does 
so, becomes shorn in a wonderful way of those little 
touches of humanity which would be destructive of 
its purposes. Now and again there comes a burst of 
human nature, as in the quarrel between Burke and 
Fox; but, as a rule, the men submit themselves to. 
be sb^iped and fashioned, and to be formed into tools^ 



311 

which are used either for building up or pulling down, 
and can generally bear to be changed from this box 
into the other, without, at any rate, the appearance 
of much personal suffering. Four-and-twenty gentle- 
men will amalgamate themselves into one whole, and 
work for one purpose, having each of them to set aside 
his own idiosyncrasy, and to endure the close personal 
contact of men who must often be personally dis- 
agreeable, having been thoroughly taught that in no 
other way can they serve either their country or their 
own ambition. These are the men who are publicly 
useful, and whom the necessities of the age supply, 
— as to whom I have never ceased to wonder that 
stones of such strong calibre should be so quickly 
worn down to the shape and smoothness of rounded 
pebbles. 

Such have been to me the Brocks and the Mild- 
mays, about whom I have written with great pleasure, 
having had my mind much exercised in watching them. 
But had I also conceived the character of a statesman of 
a different nature — of a man who should be in some- 
thing perhaps superior, but in very much inferior, to 
these men — of one who could not become a pebble, 
having too strong an identity of his own. To rid one's 
self of fine scruples — to fall into the traditions of a 
party — to feel the need of subservience, not only in 
acting but also even in thinking — to be able to be a 
bit, and at first only a very little bit, — these are the 
necessities of the growing statesman. The time may 
come, the glorious time when some great self action 
shall be possible, and shall be even demanded, as when 
Peel gave up the Corn Laws; but the rising man, as 
he puts on his harness, should not allow himself to 
dream of this. To become a good, round, smooth. 



312 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

%ard, useful pebble is his duty, and to achieve this 
he must harden his skin and swallow his scruples. But 
every now and again we see the attempt made by 
men who cannot get their skins to be hard — who after 
a little while generally fall out of the ranks. The 
statesman of whom I was thinking — of whom I had 
long thought — was one who did not fall out of the 
ranks, even though his skin would not become hard. 
He should have rank, and intellect, and parliamentary 
habits, by which to bind him to the service of his 
country; and he should also have unblemished, unex- 
tinguishable, inexhaustible love of country. That 
virtue I attribute to our statesmen generally. They 
who are without it are, I think, mean indeed. This 
man should have it as the ruling principle of his life; 
and it should so rule him that all other things should 
be made to give way to it. But he should be scrupulous, 
and, being scrupulous, weak. When called to the 
highest place in the council of his Sovereign, he should 
feel with true modesty his own insufficiency; but not 
the less should the greed of power grow upon him 
when he had once allowed himself to taste and enjoy 
it. Such was the character I endeavoured to depict 
in describing the triumph, the troubles, and the failure 
of my Prime Minister. And I think that I have suc- 
ceeded. What the public may think, or what the press 
may say, I do not yet know, the work having as yet 
run but half its course.^ 

That the man's character should be understood as 

^Writing this note in 1878, after a lapse of nearly three 
years, I am obliged to say that, as regards the public. 
The Prime Minister was a failure. It was worse spoken 
of by the press than any novel I had written. I was 
specially hurt by a criticism on it in the Spectator. The 



THE PRIME MINISTER 313 

I understand it — or that of his wife's, the delineation 
of which has also been a matter of much happy care 
to me — I have no right to expect, seeing that the 
operation of describing has not been confined to one 
novel, which might perhaps be read through by the 
majority of those who commenced it. It has been 
carried on through three or four, each of which will 
be forgotten even by the most zealous reader almost 
as soon as read. In The Prime Minister, my Prime 
Minister will not allow his wife to take office among, 
or even over, those ladies who are attached by office 
to the Queen's court. " I should not choose," he 
says to her, " that my wife should have any duties 
unconnected with our joint family and home." Who 
will remember in reading those words that, in a former 
story, published some years before, he tells his wife, 
when she has twitted him with his willingness to 
clean the Premier's shoes, that he would even allow 
her to clean them if it were for the good of the 
country? And yet it is by such details as these that 
I have, for many years past, been manufacturing 
within my own mind the characters of the man and 
his wife. 

I think that Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, 
is a perfect gentleman. If he be not, then am I unable 
to describe a gentleman. She is by no means a perfect 
lady; but if she be not all over a woman, then am I 
not able to describe a woman. I do not think it 
probable that my name will remain among those who 
in the next century will be known as the writers of 

critic who wrote the article I know to be a good critic, 
inclined to be more than fair to me; but in this case I 
could not agree with him, so much do I love the man 
whose character I had endeavoured to portray. 



314 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

English prose fiction; — but if it does, that perma- 
nence of success will probably rest on the character 
of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora, and the Rev. 
Mr. Crawley. 

I have now come to the end of that long series of 
books written by myself with which the public is 
already acquainted. Of those which I may hereafter 
be able to add to them I cannot speak; though I have 
an idea that I shall even yet once more have recourse 
to my political hero as the mainstay oi another story. 
When The Prime Minister was finished, I at once 
began another novel, which is now completed in three 
volumes, and which is called 7^ He P open joy? There 
are two Popenjoys in the book, one succeeding to the 
title held by the other; but as they are both babies, 
and do not in the course of the story progress beyond 
babyhood, the future readers, should the tale ever be 
published, will not be much interested in them. Never- 
theless the story, as a story, is not, I think, amiss. 
Since that I have written still another three-volume 
novel, to which, very much in opposition to my 
publisher, I have given the name of The American 
Senator.'^ It is to appear in Temple Bar, and is to 
commence its appearance on the first of next month. 
Such being its circumstances, I do not know that I 
can say anything else about it here. 

And so I end the record of my literary perform- 
ances, — which I think are more in amount than the 

1 The Ame7'ican Senator and P open joy have appeared, 
each with fair success. Neither of them has encountered 
that reproach which, in regard to The Prime Minister, 
seemed to tell me that my work as a novelist should be 
brought to a close. And yet I feel assured that they are 
very inferior to The Prime Minister, 



CONCLUSION 



315 



works of any other living English author. If any- 
English authors not living have written more — as may 
probably have been the case — I do not know who they 
are. I find that, taking the books which have appeared 
under our names, I have published much more than 
twice as much as Carlyle. I have also published con- 
siderably more than Voltaire, even including his letters. 
We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had 
written 480 volumes, and that he went on writing for 
eight years longer. I wish I knew what was the 
length of Varro's volumes; I comfort myself by 
reflecting that the amount of manuscript described as 
a book in Varro's time was not much. Varro, too, is 
dead, and Voltaire; whereas I am still living, and 
may add to the pile. 

The following is a list of the books I have written, 
with the dates of publication and the sums I have 
received for them. The dates given are the years 
in which the works were published as a whole, most 
of them having appeared before in some serial form. 



Names of Works. 
The Macdermots of Ballycloran, 
The Kellys and the O'Kellys, 
La Vendee, 
The Warden, 
Barchester Towers, . 
The Three Clerks, 
Doctor Thorne, 
The West Indies and the Spanish 

Main, 
The Bertrams, 



Date of 


Total Sums 


Publication 


. Received. 


. 1847 


£48 6 9 


1848 


123 19 5 


1850 


20 


1855 } 




. 1857 f 


727 II 3 


. 1858 


250 


. 1858 
h 


400 


. 1859 


250 


. 1859 


400 



Carried forward, £2219 16 17 



31^ 



AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 





Date of 


Total Sums 


Names of Works. 


Publication. Received. 


Brought Forward, 


£2219 16 


17 


Castle Richmond, 


i860 


600 





Framley Parsonage, 


1861 


1000 





Tales of All Countries — ist Series, 


i86i^ 

1863 ;>- 






2d " . 


1830 





3d " . 


1870J 






Orley Farm, 


1862 


3135 





North America, 


1862 


1250 





Rachel Ray, 


1863 


1645 





The Small House at Allington, 


1864 


3000 





Can You Forgive Her? 


1864 


3525 





Miss Mackenzie, 


1865 


1300 





The Belton Estate, . 


1866 


1757 





The Claverings, 


1867 


2800 





The Last Chronicle of Barset, 


1867 


3000 





Nina Balatka, 


1867 


450 





Linda Tressel, 


1868 


450 





Phineas Finn, 


1869 


3200 





He Knew He Was Right, . 


1869 


3200 





Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 


1870 


600 





The Vicar of Bullhampton, 


1870 


2500 





An Editor's Tales, . 


1870 


378 





Caesar (Ancient Classics), 


1870* 








Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, 1871 


750 





Ralph the Heir, 


187 1 


2500 





The Golden Lion of Granpere, 


1872 


550 





The Eustace Diamonds, 


1873 


2500 





Australia and New Zealand, 


1873 


1300 





Phineas Redux, 


1874 


2500 





Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, 


1874 


450 






Carry forward, £48,389 17 5 



^This was given by me as 
Blackwood. 



present to my friend John 



CONCLUSIOl 


Date of 


Total Sums 


Names of Works. 


Publication. Received. 


Brought forward, 


£48,389 17 5 


Lady Anna, . 


1874 


1200 


The Way We Live Now, . 


1875 


3000 


The Prime Minister, 


1876 


2500 


The American Senator, 


1877 


1800 


Is He Popenjoy? . 


1878 


1600 


South Africa, 


1878 


850 


John Caldigate, 


. 1879 


1800 


Sundries, . • . < 




7800 




i68,939 17 5 



It will not, I am sure, be thought that, in making 
my boast as to the quantity, I have endeavoured to 
lay claim to any literary excellence. That, in the 
writing of books, quantity without quality is a vice 
and a misfortune, has been too manifestly settled to 
leave a doubt on such a matter. But I do lay claim 
to whatever merit should be accorded to me for 
persevering diligence in my profession. And I make 
the claim, not with a view to my own glory, but for 
the benefit of those who may read these pages, and 
when young may intend to follow the same career. 
Nulla dies sine linea. Let that be their motto. And 
let their work be to them as is his common work to 
the common labourer. No gigantic efforts will then 
be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his 
brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without 
moving, — as men have sat, or said that they have sat. 
More than nine-tenths of my literary work has been 
done in the last twenty years, and during twelve of 
those years I followed another profession. I have 



3l8 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

never been a slave to this work, giving due time, if 
not more than due time, to the amusements I have 
loved. But I have been constant, — and constancy in 
labour will conquer all difficulties. Gutta cavat lapi- 
dem non vi, sed saepe cadendo. 

It may interest some if I state that during the last 
twenty years I have made by literature something near 
£70,000. As I have said before in these pages, I look 
upon the result as comfortable, but not splendid. 

It will not, I trust, be supposed by any reader that 
I have intended in this so-called autobiography to give 
a record of my inner life. No man ever did so truly, 
— and no man ever will. Rousseau probably attempted 
it, but who doubts but that Rousseau has confessed 
in much the thoughts and convictions rather than the 
facts of his life? If the rustle of a woman's petticoat 
has ever stirred my blood; if a cup of wine has been 
a joy to me; if I have thought tobacco at midnight 
in pleasant company to be one of the elements of an 
earthly paradise; if now and again I have somewhat 
recklessly fluttered a £5 note over a card-table; — of 
what matter is that to any reader? I have betrayed 
no woman. Wine has brought me to no sorrow. It 
has been the companionship of smoking that I have 
loved, rather than the habit. I have never desired 
to win money, and I have lost none. To enjoy the 
excitement of pleasure, but to be free from its vices 
and ill effects, — to have the sweet, and leave the bitter 
untasted, — that has been my study. The preachers tell 
us that this is impossible. It seems to me that hitherto 
I have succeeded fairly well. I will not say that I 
have never scorched a finger, — but I carry no ugly 
wounds. 

For what remains to me of life I trust for my 



CONCLUSION 319 

happiness still chiefly to my work — hoping that when 
the power of work be over with me, God may be 
pleased to take me from a world in which, according 
to my view, there can be no joy; secondly, to the love 
of those who love me; and then to my books. That 
I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great 
blessing. Could I remember, as some men do, what 
I read, I should have been able to call myself an 
educated man. But that power I have never possessed. 
Something is always left, — something dim and inac- 
curate, — but still something sufficient to preserve the 
taste for more. I am inclined to think that it is so 
with most readers. 

Of late years, putting aside the Latin classics, I 
have found my greatest pleasure in our old English 
dramatists, — not from any excessive love of their 
work, which often irritates me by its want of truth 
to nature, even while it shames me by its language, 
— but from curiosity in searching their plots and exam- 
ining their character. If I live a few years longer, 
I shall, I think, leave in my copies of these dramatists, 
down to the close of James I., written criticisms on 
every play. No one who has not looked closely into 
it knows how many there are. 

Now I stretch out my hand, and from the further 
shore I bid adieu to all who have cared to read any 
among the many words that I have written. 



THE END 



314.77-4 



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